Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinSE
Well, partially. The issue is "adequately paid". Try working in the sun in southern CA or southern FL bent over for 8 hours, carrying heavy loads. It is hard physical work. Farmers would have to pay a lot more to get Americans to give up their unemployment and work the fields. The price of food would skyrocket.
On the other hand, being a liberal and being in favor of fair liberal wages, I agree with you, that the farm workers (actually everyone) should be paid better, even potentially a "living wage" for the area. Of course, there are consequences for paying higher wages, that being shoppers have to pay higher prices to cover it. BUT, for farm goods, I think I read the other day that $0.15 of every dollar of the retail price of food goes to the farmer. So, assuming farm workers make up half of the farmer's burdened cost ( and it is NOT that high ), that only comes to $0.08 per dollar retail price, doubling what the workers are paid would only increase retail food prices - or an 8% increase in food prices at the retail store. 8% is a serious increase in food costs, but it is one time and not "sky rocketing".
Sadly, most companies when faced with increased production costs pass on more than the increase to the consumer - you know might as well make a little extra - just look a the fossil fuel industry for an example.
|
Most "so-called" farmers are NOT small farmers. They are more like factory farmers or small Corporations. They have business risks like crop failures, but they can take out crop insurance to mitigate against a really bad year. I know several farmers who harvest their crops in an AIR CONDITIONED huge piece of specialized harvesting equipment. Some large factory farmers use GPS technology to steer their harvesting equipment It can be pretty high-tech. For farmers like that much of their costs are in advanced, specialized equipment and the loans and interest expense to buy them. They would also have high diesel fuel costs.
..........So, their labor costs might be fairly low and their PROFITS fairly high. With such an operation a few SKILLED WORKERS could get raises and yet pass little or nothing in the way of costs along to the consumer.