10 ms·

They make 30 dollars an hour. Given you got that far into the article, what are your suggestions for the farmers pain points? How would you price asparagus tha

They make 30 dollars an hour. Given you got that far into the article, what are your suggestions for the farmers pain points? How would you price asparagus that needed twice the labor costs to harvest than a box next week that didn't?

BaseballPhysics 3y ago
Yes, it is very convenient that NPR picked a type of produce that demands relatively high hourly wages so that labour would look greedy in this circumstance. But make no mistake, the exact same thing will happen on farms with much lower hourly wages where the same level of skill isn't required. As for your second question, you and I both know the answers are difficult. Do you think it's reasonable for American labourers to make the same as a labourer in Peru? Because that's the issue here: globalized trade causing a race to the bottom in labour compensation. IMO there aren't many great answers, but "pay people a Peruvian wage in the US" certainly isn't a good one.
closewith 3y ago
And yet, 40 hours at $30 power hour is not enough to live on.
- kennywinker 3y ago
  Look at some of the other comments in this thread. Key takeaways: $30/hour isn’t what every worker is making. You have to live on the farm 24/7 to get those 40 hours. Normal worker was getting $1400/week, which is not $30*40hrs. Now closer to $1000/week, apparently. Tho these numbers are all from the owner not the workers.
kennywinker 3y ago
First, 30/hour is the ceiling, not the floor. But ok yeah 30/hour for 48 (soon 40) hours of work, but you have to live on the farm 7 days a week. Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour. If the target is to have each worker do 70 hours/week, but you’re capped at 40 hours before overtime kicks in, that only brings your cost up by: With overtime: 40 normal hours * $30 + 30 overtime hours * $45 = $2550 Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100 Difference is $450/worker, or a ~21% increase in cost. At most, since most workers aren’t getting $30/hour. So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut.
- bamfly 3y ago
  > So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut. Wouldn't be anything like 21%. Tons of costs other than the labor to pick. I'd bet it'd closer to 2% than 20%.
  - kennywinker 3y ago
    Omg yes, i got fixated on the labour portion and forgot that’s just a fraction of the production cost.
    - bamfly 3y ago
      Easy to do, even when people aren't doing it on purpose for propaganda reasons (which, you clearly weren't, from the tone of your post, but... it happens).
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    The article says that labor can be 50% the cost of asparagus
    - bamfly 3y ago
      This farmer claims it's about 50% of his costs. There are more steps before it hits store shelves. And price-charged is necessarily over costs for any non-failing business, so 50% (let's say) of costs won't equal 50% of the wholesale price even before shipping, storage, and all the profit and overhead of those are factored in. Plus, the same farmer said stuff like: "After all, he says, he cannot raise his price on a box of asparagus by 50% just because it was cut on a Sunday." Which makes me inclined to take anything he says about his business or this law with a grain of salt(ed & peppered grilled asparagus... mmm, delicious). Because that's both a blatant math fail, and a business-sense fail.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour. Literally still more than some other jobs, and meanwhile by this math you're getting paid while you're asleep or drinking with your friends. > Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100 What typically happens: Farmer hires 75% more people so none of them get overtime but now they each make 57% as much money because they've each had their hours cut. > So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut. Food is a global commodity. The margins aren't 21% and if you try to raise the price buyers will just get it from someone in a different country.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Easy answer: you don't. Just like when water is scarce and expensive and you want to grow water intensive crops for cheap. Then the result is not that water needs to be cheaper, but that you simply chose the wrong crop.
- seti0Cha 3y ago
  In this case the expensive resource is labor, so following your analogy, they should grow crops that are less labor intensive. Makes sense but doesn't seem like there's a net gain for the laborers there.
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    No, the whole point of the article is that for the workers it is always 7 days no matter whether it is 35, 40 or 48 "hours", since external costs like child care stay fixed. So the expensive resource decidedly is not labor but time.
    - seti0Cha 3y ago
      Ok, I see your point. If the farmer were to grow a crop that didn't require such rapid harvesting, the workers would end up doing the same labor over a longer period of time which could allow them to have lower child care costs. On the other hand, it would then take them longer in terms of calendar days to get the same income, and all their other expenses are likely to stay the same. If they normally moved on to other jobs after the harvest, this would mean reduced overall income. Also, the difficulty of the job is factored into the pay they receive (the article specifically says their hourly wage is higher than normal farm labor), so they would likely be paid less for this less demanding crop. It still doesn't seem like much of a solution.
II2II 3y ago
The numbers in the article don't work out. First of all, they were claiming that farm workers used to earn up to $1,400/week and now they are earning up to $1,000/week. They were also claiming that they could work up to 70 hours per week in the past, and now they are limiting it to 48 hours per week. Oh yes, there was also the claim they could earn up to $30/hour. - $1,400/week at 70 hours results in an hourly rate of $20/hour. Likewise, $1,400/week at $30/hour reflects 46.7 hours of work. Perhaps they mean take-home pay, but I've never heard of businesses discussing pay in that context. Perhaps the skilled workers ($30/hour) are working fewer hours than the lesser skilled workers who are being paid $20/hour. In that case, they are not working enough hours to earn overtime. - Even if they had to start paying overtime, time-and-a-half only accounts for a 21.4% increase labor costs assuming everyone was working 70 hour work weeks, not 50% more as the article claims. Given the claim that labor costs contribute to half of the cost of production, we would expect the cost of the product to rise by about 11%. Take my numbers with a grain of salt, because the numbers they are based upon (those cited in the article) are of unclear provenance. At best, the article's numbers are cherry picked and misleading. At worse, they are pulled out of a hat.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago

Yes, it is very convenient that NPR picked a type of produce that demands relatively high hourly wages so that labour would look greedy in this circumstance. But make no mistake, the exact same thing will happen on farms with much lower hourly wages where the same level of skill isn't required. As for your second question, you and I both know the answers are difficult. Do you think it's reasonable for American labourers to make the same as a labourer in Peru? Because that's the issue here: globalized trade causing a race to the bottom in labour compensation. IMO there aren't many great answers, but "pay people a Peruvian wage in the US" certainly isn't a good one.

closewith 3y ago

And yet, 40 hours at $30 power hour is not enough to live on.

kennywinker 3y ago
Look at some of the other comments in this thread. Key takeaways: $30/hour isn’t what every worker is making. You have to live on the farm 24/7 to get those 40 hours. Normal worker was getting $1400/week, which is not $30*40hrs. Now closer to $1000/week, apparently. Tho these numbers are all from the owner not the workers.

kennywinker 3y ago

First, 30/hour is the ceiling, not the floor. But ok yeah 30/hour for 48 (soon 40) hours of work, but you have to live on the farm 7 days a week. Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour. If the target is to have each worker do 70 hours/week, but you’re capped at 40 hours before overtime kicks in, that only brings your cost up by: With overtime: 40 normal hours * $30 + 30 overtime hours * $45 = $2550 Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100 Difference is $450/worker, or a ~21% increase in cost. At most, since most workers aren’t getting $30/hour. So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut.

bamfly 3y ago
> So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut. Wouldn't be anything like 21%. Tons of costs other than the labor to pick. I'd bet it'd closer to 2% than 20%.
- kennywinker 3y ago
  Omg yes, i got fixated on the labour portion and forgot that’s just a fraction of the production cost.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    Easy to do, even when people aren't doing it on purpose for propaganda reasons (which, you clearly weren't, from the tone of your post, but... it happens).
- anon84873628 3y ago
  The article says that labor can be 50% the cost of asparagus
  - bamfly 3y ago
    This farmer claims it's about 50% of his costs. There are more steps before it hits store shelves. And price-charged is necessarily over costs for any non-failing business, so 50% (let's say) of costs won't equal 50% of the wholesale price even before shipping, storage, and all the profit and overhead of those are factored in. Plus, the same farmer said stuff like: "After all, he says, he cannot raise his price on a box of asparagus by 50% just because it was cut on a Sunday." Which makes me inclined to take anything he says about his business or this law with a grain of salt(ed & peppered grilled asparagus... mmm, delicious). Because that's both a blatant math fail, and a business-sense fail.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour. Literally still more than some other jobs, and meanwhile by this math you're getting paid while you're asleep or drinking with your friends. > Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100 What typically happens: Farmer hires 75% more people so none of them get overtime but now they each make 57% as much money because they've each had their hours cut. > So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut. Food is a global commodity. The margins aren't 21% and if you try to raise the price buyers will just get it from someone in a different country.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Easy answer: you don't. Just like when water is scarce and expensive and you want to grow water intensive crops for cheap. Then the result is not that water needs to be cheaper, but that you simply chose the wrong crop.

seti0Cha 3y ago
In this case the expensive resource is labor, so following your analogy, they should grow crops that are less labor intensive. Makes sense but doesn't seem like there's a net gain for the laborers there.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  No, the whole point of the article is that for the workers it is always 7 days no matter whether it is 35, 40 or 48 "hours", since external costs like child care stay fixed. So the expensive resource decidedly is not labor but time.
  - seti0Cha 3y ago
    Ok, I see your point. If the farmer were to grow a crop that didn't require such rapid harvesting, the workers would end up doing the same labor over a longer period of time which could allow them to have lower child care costs. On the other hand, it would then take them longer in terms of calendar days to get the same income, and all their other expenses are likely to stay the same. If they normally moved on to other jobs after the harvest, this would mean reduced overall income. Also, the difficulty of the job is factored into the pay they receive (the article specifically says their hourly wage is higher than normal farm labor), so they would likely be paid less for this less demanding crop. It still doesn't seem like much of a solution.

II2II 3y ago

The numbers in the article don't work out. First of all, they were claiming that farm workers used to earn up to $1,400/week and now they are earning up to $1,000/week. They were also claiming that they could work up to 70 hours per week in the past, and now they are limiting it to 48 hours per week. Oh yes, there was also the claim they could earn up to $30/hour. - $1,400/week at 70 hours results in an hourly rate of $20/hour. Likewise, $1,400/week at $30/hour reflects 46.7 hours of work. Perhaps they mean take-home pay, but I've never heard of businesses discussing pay in that context. Perhaps the skilled workers ($30/hour) are working fewer hours than the lesser skilled workers who are being paid $20/hour. In that case, they are not working enough hours to earn overtime. - Even if they had to start paying overtime, time-and-a-half only accounts for a 21.4% increase labor costs assuming everyone was working 70 hour work weeks, not 50% more as the article claims. Given the claim that labor costs contribute to half of the cost of production, we would expect the cost of the product to rise by about 11%. Take my numbers with a grain of salt, because the numbers they are based upon (those cited in the article) are of unclear provenance. At best, the article's numbers are cherry picked and misleading. At worse, they are pulled out of a hat.