Gotta get them taters harvested!
Whenever I hear someone say there's a job Americans won't do or that there's a labor shortage, I always ask: "If you were paying $1,000 an hour do you think you'd still have that problem?"
The answer is always, "no." Then I explain to them that we've established that both statements are false and all we have is a disagreement on price. I don't think the wholesale destruction of our way of life is worth the "bargain" of cheap agricultural labor.
If I made 1000 an hour I would be soooo happy.
Actually taters are machine harvested.... I'm sure there are people involved in sorting them along the line.
I think part of the problem is the temporary nature of this type work. People with jobs aren't going to leave them to move to Idaho to work for a month or two. People without jobs tend to stay put rather than travel to find work. We could encourage them with higher pay but they might lose subsidized housing, subsidized day care (or school), state assistance, etc. For people who are third world poor, moving to follow the money is less difficult. Perhaps we've made it too easy for the unemployed to stay on their asses. I wonder if Idaho would be better off if instead of families seeking a better life, they instead had an influx of people from the projects in Chitcongo and Mississippi.
Not being able to pay subhumans subhuman wages would spur automation just like the end of cheap slave and sharecropper labor pushed mechanization like combine harvesters and bailers.
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