Muzna
May 27, 2016, 4:12pm
7
Re: US Farmers Depend on Illegal Immigrants
Not that I am against illegal immigration, but Americans should not be divided on this issue, until they are divided on the price they are willing to pay for produce at the local grocery store.
We need illegal immigrants at farms, because farmers are not even willing to pay minimum wage to these workers. It’s because big giant grocery markets want to buy the produce at the cheapest rate possible, in fact it’s these retail outlets that set the purchasing price of produce from the farmers. They want to buy cheap, so they can sell cheap, because you and me as customers are so frugal that we are willing to switch our buying location if we can save just 1 dollar on our groceries.
Tomato farm workers are paid as little one cent per pound. That means they have to pick 4000 lbs of tomato to make 40 dollars. You know what that means? That means that if you and me are willing to pay just one more cent per pound of tomatoes then technically these farm workers’ pay can be doubled. But that is not going to happen, because we want cheap grocery.
Very concise explanation. Thanks.
Let’s say the consumer agreed to pay the 1 cent more for tomatoes…how would that impact things? Workers would double their pay…and then…?