Ray From Cleveland
Diamond Member
- Aug 16, 2015
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electrical work in Massachusetts charge $100 bucks an hour for the customer....those guys on polls in frigid weather get a pretty penny in the north, and THAT'S why they do it....Yes, I'm sure of it.
Americans will do any job for the proper compensation. Up north in these ungodly winters, I see linemen out in -0 degree weather during snow storms with winds 30mph on polls restoring electric power. I see the same in such weather repairing water lines.
The supply and demand system is the most perfect when it comes to employment. If you can't find workers,you need to increase your offers. If you find many workers, you are probably paying too much.
The system works good until you throw a monkey wrench into it like unions or immigrants. Then it F's up everything.
Plumbing work is also $100 an hour there, and this was 10 years ago....
Picking fruit is a much much harder job in the physical sense! the workers will have back problems and arthritis and many other painful ailments when they get older and if the Farmer does not contribute towards their health insurance, that's another expense that a $12.50 an hour job worker can not pay on that kind of money....
We who live here will get hit with higher prices on our food....shoot, $15 an hour with no benefits is not enough for any American to take this hard labor job....
Besides, THEY DON'T LIVE near the middle of nowhere farm land, the ones unemployed live near metropolitan area for the most part...you gotta pay an American a lot more money to be able to move themselves to a new area, find a home to rent, a car to drive, insurance etc....
I don't think $20 an hour with no benefits, is even enough....
And who in the world when they are young and strong, will want to live in the middle of farm land in the middle of nowhere? who would waste their youth picking veggies and fruit, when this would be the time to find a career path and the learning period of their future?
WHY don't the farmers apply for the visa for Migrant workers?
Liberal: We need to raise minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.
Conservative: that will increase the cost of our products and services.
Liberal: You won't notice the fifteen cent increase in your big-mac combo!
Conservative: We need to remove illegals and allow Americans to do those jobs.
Liberal: Do you know how much more you will pay for fruits and Veggies if we did that??.
Conservative farmer and Trump voter: American's won't do those jobs.
Removing illegals will not magically create a labor pool for farmers all across the United States who can't find enough labor now- legal or illegal.
But I do get it- Conservatives think that allowing enough small farmers to be drivenout of business for lack of labor will improve the economy.
So what is your clam here, that if we don't have illegals and immigrants, we will quit growing food?
Farmers will stop growing the food that requires workers to pick it. Not that complicated- if the farmers can't find someway to automate the picking- which does work for some crops- they will be driven out of business- or find another profitable crop for their area- which is not always a possibility- they will be driven out of business.
Grain farming will continue of course- largely automated now- a few hard working people can handle hundreds of acres- but not fruit, not produce.
That will be driven out of the country- already much of it has- that garlic you buy probably comes from China. Napa will be okay- because they already pay a premium for legal migrant workers so they can get enough workers for their crops- but lettuce growers? Lot more lettuce will be coming from Mexico and Central America.
I don't know many people that would give up their business simply because they can't find workers. I also don't believe that they wouldn't be able to find workers without immigration.
If we get to the point where farmers can't find workers, engineers will find a way to produce machinery that will do the job those workers used to do. After all.......they already use automation to replace humans that will do certain jobs Americans were willing to do.
But even on a stretch, let's say your predictions come true, what's wrong with us importing our commodities?