151–160 of 178 posts
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Exactly right. This work needs to be entirely automated.
Okay, what's your proposition for the displaced workers?
Anyway, having people do work that could be automated feels like another version of the broken window fallacy.
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In another comment on this thread, a farmer said he couldn't hire people at $25 / hour. If a machine can do it, then a machine should do it. Especially work that's difficult and can be dangerous - like farm work.
I'm certain people will do the work for $1 million per hour. Thus it seems a valid conclusion that $25/hr in California for this work is not the market rate.
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Yes, but farm workers only work part of the year, and only work on each farm for a few weeks.. then move onto another farm. So having 1 farm paying $25/hr, does not change much for the worker.. after they finish at that farm, they'll need to go to another that's paying near minimum wage (the average for a farm worker).. and the result is that they are still in poverty (the average farm worker lives below the poverty…
This basically requires the worker to be either homeless or that they can leave a house somewhere else empty while they are working on a farm. How does welfare in the US cover housing costs ?
Farms are heavily dependent on immigrants, mostly illegal immigrants from mexico (90% are foreign born) for crop workers. They work on our farms for very little pay (but probably more than they would have in mexico), work here for 10 years or so saving as much as possible, then go back to mexico. They may travel from CA > WA through the season; or on the east: FL > OH > ME (this prolongs their work season). They're on average very poor, with little education (6th grade is the average).
With the more recent restrictions on the flow of illegal migrants, many are finding it's impossible to come back to the us (or they choose not to come back). Disrupting the flow of illegal migrants that the farms depend on.
That is the source of the labor shortage that the farms are now complaining about.
Essentially for years they have taken advantage of illegal immigrants to depress wages in their industry. And now they have been cut off, and theyre finding it difficult to adjust their wages to appropriate levels so they can compete in the domestic labor market.
Farmers deserve no sympathy for the labor shortage.. it's an exploitative arrangement. They should automate as much as possible, and for everything else they should pay market rates (whatever those may be... even if it's $100/hr or more (remember its short term hard labor, 2nd most dangerous work in the US)).
This shortage is actually a great thing, if it lasts. Whatever workers are left, might finally get paid a livable reasonable wage.
Edit: if your curious about their conditions, here's the National Agriculture Workers Survey that covers all of this: https://www.doleta.gov/agworker/pdf/NAWS_Research_Report_12_...
It's currently "offline for maintenance", so here's google's cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HiRr7h...
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In another comment on this thread, a farmer said he couldn't hire people at $25 / hour. If a machine can do it, then a machine should do it. Especially work that's difficult and can be dangerous - like farm work.
Farm labor in other states earn $15-20 an hour [1], and will enjoy much higher purchasing power, and (almost certainly) a political climate they'll find less actively hostile than the one they'll find in California. Why would farm laborers want to come here? 1. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes452099.htm
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I'm certain people will do the work for $1 million per hour. Thus it seems a valid conclusion that $25/hr in California for this work is not the market rate.
The market rate has to include the cost of doing the job with machines. If a person will do it for $1 million per hour but I can get a machine to do it for $1 / hour, then the market rate is $1 / hour.
> Stated bluntly, there aren’t enough new immigrants for the state’s nearly half-million farm labor jobs That's why we need a "farmworker" visa system, which lets workers come when required and go back as needed. Millions of people work on such visas all over the world; I don't see why it won't work in the US.
The problem is, many people dont go back.
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Okay, what's your proposition for the displaced workers?
Displaced workers? We're talking about how difficult it is to find people to do this work. Anyway, having people do work that could be automated feels like another version of the broken window fallacy.
* in California. So farmers don't matter, just like other workers who lose their jobs to automation. Got it, thanks for the help.
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As has been confirmed in 95% of previous land reform efforts, farming is not "profiteering". When you take productive land from its owners and give it to the politically connected, you're left with unproductive land.
Surely it's 95.6897% ? It would be a mistake to simply call this "land reform" and confuse it with (e.g. Zimbabwe) while ignoring positive examples (e.g. Ireland). It's a fundamentally different situation brought about by technological progress. The balance of benefits to society of having a risk-taking entrepreneur who is able to (often) produce a desired good and disperse some of the profit to employees is altered.…
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Displaced workers? We're talking about how difficult it is to find people to do this work. Anyway, having people do work that could be automated feels like another version of the broken window fallacy.
> We're talking about how difficult it is to find people to do this work. * in California. So farmers don't matter, just like other workers who lose their jobs to automation. Got it, thanks for the help.