labor shortages and unemployment

[Zalatix]

If Jesus from a hamlet somewhere in Guadalajara can sneak past the Migra and find his way to the fields, why can't a city dweller who is a citizen and can come and go as he/she pleases without having to hide from the authorities?

Plus, many growers do provide housing for their temporary workers. That's more than any city employer is willing to do.



No, but it would be a start, particularly for the ones who are young enough to do hard labor and who need an incentive to better their job skills.

And how is working on the farm going to prepare you for America's increasingly automated economy?

 

[ttwtt78640]

And how is working on the farm going to prepare you for America's increasingly automated economy?

The same way paying you welfare/unemployement benefits does, but at least you produce something beyond what you consume in the process.

 

[CalGun]

This is the problem with socialist. They think they know everything. As a matter of fact I worked in a field yesterday. What did you do? Protest for a thug kid who tried to attack a man in Florida or beg the govt for another hand out. You can ignore me now because I ignore people that claim they know anything about me and present it as a complete falsehood.

First of all, you have not worked in the fields. If you did work in the fields you would have noted that working in the fields is among the most hazardous lines of work that is actually insurable by worker's comp. Private insurers won't cover farm laborers because of the severe threat of injury, heat stroke, and death.

Plenty of people sign up for construction work even though it is also hazardous. The problem with farming is that farmers make their workplaces incredibly dangerous by intentional neglect - something you can't get away with in construction. That's why a SELECT FEW private insurers will cover workers comp for ROOFERS but NONE will cover farming.

THAT is why people don't want to work in the farms. You get DEAD too easily.

Second of all, your welfare and obamaphones and section 8 nonsense are outright lies. You have a lifetime cap of 5 years for welfare. Also Obamaphones are NOT obamaphones. The program you're talking about dates back to REAGAN and BUSH. Section 8 housing is in very short supply so very few people get in, even those who are poor. As for free health care, every other civilized nation has it.

Enough of the lies.

 

[paddymcdougall]

First of all, you have not worked in the fields. If you did work in the fields you would have noted that working in the fields is among the most hazardous lines of work that is actually insurable by worker's comp. Private insurers won't cover farm laborers because of the severe threat of injury, heat stroke, and death.

Plenty of people sign up for construction work even though it is also hazardous. The problem with farming is that farmers make their workplaces incredibly dangerous by intentional neglect - something you can't get away with in construction. That's why a SELECT FEW private insurers will cover workers comp for ROOFERS but NONE will cover farming.

THAT is why people don't want to work in the farms. You get DEAD too easily.

Second of all, your welfare and obamaphones and section 8 nonsense are outright lies. You have a lifetime cap of 5 years for welfare. Also Obamaphones are NOT obamaphones. The program you're talking about dates back to REAGAN and BUSH. Section 8 housing is in very short supply so very few people get in, even those who are poor. As for free health care, every other civilized nation has it.

Enough of the lies.

Thanks, Zalatix. I get so tired of that obamaphone junk line. And yes, welfare is limited. And yes, Section 8 housing is hard to get. Thank you!

Farmers want workers? Raise the hourly wage and improve the conditions. Supply and demand. Or perhaps right-wingers would rather give up on the whole idea of supply and demand and instead force young people to work on farms at low wages so the right-wingers have cheaper food. Isn't that like indentured servitude?

 

[Dittohead not!]

And how is working on the farm going to prepare you for America's increasingly automated economy?

By giving you a work ethic, and by encouraging you to improve job skills so you don't have to pick fruit for a living.

 

[Zalatix]

This is the problem with socialist. They think they know everything. As a matter of fact I worked in a field yesterday. What did you do? Protest for a thug kid who tried to attack a man in Florida or beg the govt for another hand out. You can ignore me now because I ignore people that claim they know anything about me and present it as a complete falsehood.

Your arguments were flat out lies. Your obamaphone claims were lies. Your Section 8 claims were lies. You do not understand why people avoid working in the farm fields.

None of what I said was factually wrong. You on the other hand told falsehoods out the wazoo.

 

[Zalatix]

By giving you a work ethic, and by encouraging you to improve job skills so you don't have to pick fruit for a living.

Your problem is that you think Americans don't have a good work ethic already. Americans are the hardest working people in the world with the FEWEST vacation hours and the LOWEST wages of any civilized country.

What we Americans don't have is the willingness to work for the lowest wages in the deadliest of jobs.

What YOU want is that **** they got going on in Bangladesh. It bet it broke your heart to see them say they were going to improve working conditions so people wouldn't keep dying there. (Not that they're going to follow through, though...)

 

[Zalatix]

The same way paying you welfare/unemployement benefits does, but at least you produce something beyond what you consume in the process.

Which is more than we can say about most Republican states, which use more welfare than they contribute.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Which is more than we can say about most Republican states, which use more welfare than they contribute.

Don't you just love the static federal poverty rate and lower cost of living in red states?

 

[Zalatix]

Don't you just love the static federal poverty rate and lower cost of living in red states?

That doesn't change the fact that red states spend more welfare dollars than they contribute.

You can't spin doctor your way out of that. Red states are not self-reliant. They're even LESS self-reliant than blue states.

The funniest part about it all is how the red states whine about big government, cut their own firefighter budgets, and then cry for Big Government aid when droughts wipe out their crops and then vast apocalyptic-sized wildfires roast away what's left. Texas, I am talking... no, laughing at... you.

 

[ttwtt78640]

That doesn't change the fact that red states spend more welfare dollars than they contribute.

You can't spin doctor your way out of that. Red states are not self-reliant. They're even LESS self-reliant than blue states.

The funniest part about it all is how the red states whine about big government, cut their own firefighter budgets, and then cry for Big Government aid when droughts wipe out their crops and then vast apocalyptic-sized wildfires roast away what's left. Texas, I am talking... no, laughing at... you.

Offer loads of "free" federal cash and then act shocked when someone accepts it much?

 

[Zalatix]

Offer loads of "free" federal cash and then act shocked when someone accepts it much?

So after preaching against the evils of Big Government, when Big Government offers you help, you take their help?

That's called hypocrisy and that's what makes people NOT take your cause seriously. Your actions don't agree with your rhetoric.

 

[Fisher]

That doesn't change the fact that red states spend more welfare dollars than they contribute.

You can't spin doctor your way out of that. Red states are not self-reliant. They're even LESS self-reliant than blue states.

The funniest part about it all is how the red states whine about big government, cut their own firefighter budgets, and then cry for Big Government aid when droughts wipe out their crops and then vast apocalyptic-sized wildfires roast away what's left. Texas, I am talking... no, laughing at... you.

No this is where the liberal meme falls apart because they use the chart for total federal spending by state, welfare and otherwise, and then try to twist federal spending into Welfare.

Red states do not come close to blue district per capita federal welfare. These are the 2005 numbers but the trend remains. I just haven't found a handy chart with the more recent data.

The Audacious Epigone: Per capita federal welfare expenditures by state

1. District of Columbia 291.55
2. New York 218.25
3. California 173.46
4. New Mexico 168.13
5. Alaska 165.27
6. Vermont 146.16
7. Louisiana 139.98
8. Michigan 135.89
9. Oklahoma 133.89
10. Rhode Island 132.39
11. Pennsylvania 127.59
12. Mississippi 127.57
13. Georgia 121.78
14. West Virginia 119.89
15. Kentucky 119.51
16. Oregon 119.30
17. Hawaii 118.86
18. Connecticut 117.29
19. New Jersey 117.04
20. Washington 115.73
21. Maine 113.70
22. Arizona 113.44
23. North Dakota 111.08
24. Massachusetts 108.79
25. Wisconsin 108.05
26. Wyoming 107.58
27. South Dakota 106.80
28. North Carolina 106.61
29. Texas 105.87
30. Kansas 104.59
31. Illinois 102.06
32. Iowa 101.68
33. Delaware 100.67
34. Minnesota 100.61
35. Arkansas 97.95
36. Montana 97.89
37. Missouri 95.81
38. Nebraska 95.42
39. Alabama 95.08
40. Utah 93.25
41. Tennessee 92.96
42. Ohio 91.13
43. South Carolina 89.69
43. South Carolina 89.69
44. Idaho 84.76
45. Maryland 77.92
46. Indiana 77.85
47. Colorado 68.06
48. Nevada 65.23
49. Virginia 59.61
50. Florida 59.19
51. New Hampshire 53.42

 

[Zalatix]

No this is where the liberal meme falls apart because they use the chart for total federal spending by state, welfare and otherwise, and then try to twist federal spending into Welfare.

Red states do not come close to blue district per capita federal welfare. These are the 2005 numbers but the trend remains. I just haven't found a handy chart with the more recent data.

The Audacious Epigone: Per capita federal welfare expenditures by state

1. District of Columbia 291.55
2. New York 218.25
3. California 173.46
4. New Mexico 168.13
5. Alaska 165.27
6. Vermont 146.16
7. Louisiana 139.98
8. Michigan 135.89
9. Oklahoma 133.89
10. Rhode Island 132.39
11. Pennsylvania 127.59
12. Mississippi 127.57
13. Georgia 121.78
14. West Virginia 119.89
15. Kentucky 119.51
16. Oregon 119.30
17. Hawaii 118.86
18. Connecticut 117.29
19. New Jersey 117.04
20. Washington 115.73
21. Maine 113.70
22. Arizona 113.44
23. North Dakota 111.08
24. Massachusetts 108.79
25. Wisconsin 108.05
26. Wyoming 107.58
27. South Dakota 106.80
28. North Carolina 106.61
29. Texas 105.87
30. Kansas 104.59
31. Illinois 102.06
32. Iowa 101.68
33. Delaware 100.67
34. Minnesota 100.61
35. Arkansas 97.95
36. Montana 97.89
37. Missouri 95.81
38. Nebraska 95.42
39. Alabama 95.08
40. Utah 93.25
41. Tennessee 92.96
42. Ohio 91.13
43. South Carolina 89.69
43. South Carolina 89.69
44. Idaho 84.76
45. Maryland 77.92
46. Indiana 77.85
47. Colorado 68.06
48. Nevada 65.23
49. Virginia 59.61
50. Florida 59.19
51. New Hampshire 53.42

Go back and look up your statistics. Those blue states spend a lot of welfare dollars but those same stats also say they contribute more than they spend. Red states spend less welfare dollars but they spend more than they contribute.

You are intentionally being misleading. Which is understandable when you're fighting from a losing position.

 

[beerftw]

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

simply it is because of how low profits are for agriculture,farmers typically rely on lowest wage workers.most herein texas areonly paid minimum wage,and make their money from overtime(most farm laborers work 80+ hours a week,literally from sun up to sundown)which amounts to goodmoney at the end of the week,but terrible money when considered how much work is put in,and most theirmoney is from over,paying time and a half,which requires over 40 hours a week.

most small to medium farmers struggle to even afford paying minimum wage,while larger corporate farms could probably afford more,they simply wont because they pay based on the averages.farmers are still controlled today by the quotas system implemented during the depression,in which farmers are paid in subsidies to not produce over a certain amount to keep prices high,however it doesnt really favor farmers to produce less to keep prices high,that system only favors investors who buy crops as futures.

 

[Dittohead not!]

Your problem is that you think Americans don't have a good work ethic already. Americans are the hardest working people in the world with the FEWEST vacation hours and the LOWEST wages of any civilized country.

What we Americans don't have is the willingness to work for the lowest wages in the deadliest of jobs.

What YOU want is that **** they got going on in Bangladesh. It bet it broke your heart to see them say they were going to improve working conditions so people wouldn't keep dying there. (Not that they're going to follow through, though...)

What breaks my heart is the thought of crops rotting in the fields while people are out of work. The other thing that breaks my heart is the spectacle of thousands of low wage low skill workers flooding across our borders, and the growers needing the illegal flood to continue.
There must be a better way.

 

[samsmart]

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

Not sure if its been mentioned here yet, but...

One major reason why is because ag labor pays less than unemployment. So it doesn't make sense for those people to take ag labor jobs.

But the reason why migrant workers do ag labor is because the low pay in US dollars they get would be better than than the pay they'd get in their homeland.

Essentially, a migrant worker can live better on their ag labor wages working in the US for a few months and then moving back than an American worker can live on in the US year round on the same wages.

That has the most to do with it, really.

 

[Zalatix]

What breaks my heart is the thought of crops rotting in the fields while people are out of work. The other thing that breaks my heart is the spectacle of thousands of low wage low skill workers flooding across our borders, and the growers needing the illegal flood to continue.
There must be a better way.

The solution is to pummel the holy hell out of employers who abuse their workers and pay illegally low wages. This will solve the entire problem at its root. You won't need to engage in a historically pointless war against immigrants if you imprison employers who exploit workers with unsafe working conditions and pay them illegally low wages. Imprison them, confiscate all their assets, and pay it out to the injured parties. Then hand the company over to the workers.

 

[beerftw]

Which is more than we can say about most Republican states, which use more welfare than they contribute.

most of those states you call welfare states receive less than the blue states in actual welfare spending per capita,they use farming subsidies and interstate road subsidies listed as welfare for their cause.

im no fan of farming subsidies,id rather they ended the quota system and created a nationwide insurance pool for farmers to cover losses,rather than paying them not to produce,but in reality most farming subsidies go to the south,as they have the most farms,hence where the they recieve more then they contribute comes from.if you counted actual welfare spending,nearly 2/3rds of the entire nations welfare spending is spent in california alone.

 

[Dittohead not!]

The solution is to pummel the holy hell out of employers who abuse their workers and pay illegally low wages. This will solve the entire problem at its root. You won't need to engage in a historically pointless war against immigrants if you imprison employers who exploit workers with unsafe working conditions and pay them illegally low wages. Imprison them, confiscate all their assets, and pay it out to the injured parties. Then hand the company over to the workers.

That sounds like a socialist dream, all right. Hasn't it been tried, in some of the African countries?

How about just fining the employers who hire illegals, and let labor supply and demand increase wages?

 

[poweRob]

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

It kind of boils down to us still fighting whether or not we want indentured servitude labor force or not. If you pay right, they will come. They don't want to pay right so they'd rather import immigrant workers to subvert any standards that could ever possibly be put in place.

 

[jamesrage]

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

WHen pro-illegal scum say farmers need illegals, amnesty or farmers need to be able to exploit the agricultural visa program they are really saying they just do not want to pay Americans enough to do those jobs.

 

[paddymcdougall]

How about just fining the employers who hire illegals, and let labor supply and demand increase wages?

Well, isn't that kind of what's happening right now? Without as many foreign workers, either farmers increase wages or produce rots.

By the way - these jobs aren't all low-skilled. I heard that picking watermelons (I think that was the crop) takes practice and skill; they tried to hire newbies one time and they couldn't pick properly - was ruining the crop.

Happened in Alabama back when they first cracked down on illegal workers...sorry, can't find the link right now.

 

[Diving Mullah]

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

Simple....

You can take my word for it (and if you don't, which I suggest you shouldn't) or do a little research on your own by visiting any college campus specially any engineering department. If you go to any engineering department specially advance classes.. meaning 300/400 level classes or Master and phd, you will find out that 90% of the soon to be engineers are foreign students, 10 years ago it used to me mostly Asian (Chinese) and now mostly Indian.

Our company like many others can't find qualified US citizens with Master or above degree in Engineering jobs, so we have to look else where which is right now graduates from India.

Because of the high demand and not enough supply the immigration office is also bugged down and typically 7-10 years waiting for the residency path, which means companies have to spend time and money on immigration lawyers, which does hurt the bottom line.

BTW these are not low paid drones. Immigration office has very strict policies as the minimum pay requirements for foreign student working in a practical training programs which is stepping stone to working visa (H1) and then path to residency!

Companies like mine prefer to hire US citizen or US residents, but we can't find any...the good ones all are taken by big and fancy firms. For few positions that we have open we have been looking for more than 5 years.

Diving Mullah

 

[paddymcdougall]

I agree, Diving Mullah, the system is definitely out of whack. We need to get our kids into those advanced classes...

And the visa system is horribly slow; that needs to be fixed.

But I think the Op of this thread was wondering why all those kids that don't get advanced degrees don't go take farmworker jobs; I think a lot of posts in this thread have pointed out that until farmers can pay more (which means eventually we'll be paying more for food) that just isn't going to happen.