'They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers

[RF667799]

No, but my response also wasn’t “I don’t care if people drown in the Mississippi. Let’s not have any policies to prevent drownings.”

He stepped onto a sandbar that gave way under him. What sort of policy would prevent such a thing? I'm glad to know that you care so deeply about people drowning in the Mississippi though. When did you first start advocating for policies to prevent river drownings?

 

[Questerr]

He stepped onto a sandbar that gave way under him. What sort of policy would prevent such a thing? I'm glad to know that you care so deeply about people drowning in the Mississippi though. When did you first start advocating for policies to prevent river drownings?

Policies don’t have to be 100% effective. But we also should base our policies on sociopathy either.

 

[RF667799]

You think I believe prisoners should have grapes peeled for them or something?

I expect better of you than this ridiculous false dichotomy.

Refrain from torture. Not for their sake, but for our society's sake.

BTW, it appears that Gacy was tortured by the state before his demise. I really can't work up a lot of sympathy. And when I say not a lot, I mean no sympathy.

AI overview:
In Illinois, death row was a separate unit within the prison system, characterized by solitary confinement, restricted movement, and limited access to programs and amenities. Inmates on death row in Illinois, like elsewhere, faced harsher conditions and more deprivation than the general prison population. Illinois's death row was abolished in 2011 when the state repealed the death penalty.

Here's a more detailed look at the conditions on Illinois's death row:

• Solitary Confinement:
  Death row inmates were typically housed in solitary confinement, meaning they were isolated from the general prison population and often spent upwards of 23 hours a day in their cells.

 

[RF667799]

Policies don’t have to be 100% effective. But we also should base our policies on sociopathy either.

Well, I can see you're really broke up about the guy drowning though. Maybe not as broke up as you would be if someone had held his head underwater until he drowned, and then been sentenced to prison. You would probably be really concerned about that guy.

 

[Chomsky]

Of course they will because they can pass those costs on. Get ready for the $6 tomato. It’s coming.

Altrightee. Even while I'm taking much of the other side of this issue, compared to many of my more regular "compatriots", I do see yours and others' opposing points.

But, I see rightful claims often being expressed overtly hyperbolically.

I did a quick looksee, and found 13% of a farmer's production costs are due to total labour costs. Google A.I also states this. According to my source (USDA), these labour costs also including worker benefits & insurance. Given that benefits and insurance are fixed per worker costs, I think it's fair to say we could literally double workers wages and your tomato would not go up more than 10%.

And given, as was explained to me above, California's current "AEWR" hourly wage of just over 20 bucks an hour, our 10% more expensive tomato allows us to offer field wages of over 40 bucks an hour.

Might there be some Americans willing to do this work for 40 bucks an hour? $320-400 for an 8-10 hour day? $1,600-2,000 a week for a 5 day week. $2,340-2,800 a week if working 7 days, as I understand is commonly available during picking seasons?

Might some Americans be willing to do that? I bet some would. I bet some would to moonlight a day or two a week from their regular gig, too. I also bet some working minimum wage job holders might consider it.

Now I realize the AEWR varies by state. But the numbers would obviously scale across the various local economies, with the same incentive quotient.

My point in all of this is that farm labour costs are a relatively small part of food costs, and we haven't tried to let free-market forces determine labour wage pricing in at least a half century (if ever).

Oh, one last thing: My the USDA's 13% labour product cost applies only to producer cost! We haven't factored in the transportation, wholesaler, and retailor costs. Factoring that in, I wouldn't doubt if our hypothetical doubling farm-workers' wages produces any more than a few percentage points in increased consumer pricing. Your buck-and-a-half large tomato, may now cost a buck-fifty-seven! Whoopee!

Reference:

A farm’s reliance on labor varies by commodity specialization. On average, labor costs (including contract labor, hired labor, and worker benefits, such as insurance) accounted for about 13 percent of total farm cash expenses in 2022.

Source:

Specialty crop farms have highest labor cost as portion of total cash expenses | Economic Research Service

A farm’s reliance on labor varies by commodity specialization. On average, labor costs (including contract labor, hired labor, and worker benefits, such as insurance) accounted for about 13 percent of total farm cash expenses in 2022. Farms specializing in the production of specialty crops...

www.ers.usda.gov

 

[Chomsky]

Someone failed to learn a lesson on supply chains, lol.

You won't be paying a fee cents more.

lol

The USDA claims farm labour, including benefits & insurance, is 13% of total producer cost.

This does not including transportation, wholesaler, and retailor costs, which lower the 13% farm labour component even further as a portion of retail sale price.

Here:

Specialty crop farms have highest labor cost as portion of total cash expenses | Economic Research Service

A farm’s reliance on labor varies by commodity specialization. On average, labor costs (including contract labor, hired labor, and worker benefits, such as insurance) accounted for about 13 percent of total farm cash expenses in 2022. Farms specializing in the production of specialty crops...

www.ers.usda.gov

I also just did a post showing a doubling of farm-labour wages (>$40/hr in CA), would probably not result in much more than a 7% retail price increase. Feel free to check my numbers.

Here:

Post in thread ''They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers'

Jun 30, 2025

Of course they will because they can pass those costs on. Get ready for the $6 tomato. It’s coming.

Altrightee. Even while I'm taking much of the other side of this issue, compared to many of my more regular "compatriots", I do see yours and others' opposing points.

But, I see rightful claims often being expressed overtly hyperbolically.

I did a quick looksee, and found 13% of a farmer's production costs are due to total labour costs. Google A.I also states this. According to my source (USDA), these labour costs also including worker benefits & insurance. Given that...

• Chomsky

• 

 

[Chomsky]

At least since the mid-1990s.

I mean we did elect a 34-count felon to office, but somehow we're going to make an example of the people who grow and cook our food? If the rule of law is our concern, we had a chance to make a statement to that effect on November 5, 2024. And we most certainly did. Loud and clear.

Look at my signature @Chomsky. Look at it long and hard. This country is dead. I've had that up for at least a year. I knew we'd vote for Trump, and I knew the chaos he would unleash. And what I can tell you now is, this is the first inning. Shit, this is the ceremonial first pitch. We've seen nothing yet.

I'm not saying what Trump is doing is right. Nor, how he's doing it.

But that's not to say there aren't fundamental problems needing to be addressed. These problems are separate from Trump, and what he's doing. In fact, these problem gave us Trump.

 

[Questerr]

Well, I can see you're really broke up about the guy drowning though. Maybe not as broke up as you would be if someone had held his head underwater until he drowned, and then been sentenced to prison. You would probably be really concerned about that guy.

Do you think a person has to be “broken up” to have empathy for others?

 

[Chomsky]

I stand corrected. I had him confused with another serial murderer who was done in by his fellow miscreants.

Do you count that as a gotchya in your column?

Was he in solitary confinement before the state killed him?

I'm opposed to capital punishment though.

You might be thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Another serial murder of boys and young men, technically from Milwaukee, but was active in Northern Illinois & Chicago, claiming his victims from both Illinois & Chicago.

Here:

(Wiki) Jeffrey Dahmer

(BTW - Between Dahmer, Gacy, and the Tylenol Murders, in the span of a couple short years entering the 80's, Chicagoans really had their share of sordid revelations!)

 

[RF667799]

Do you think a person has to be “broken up” to have empathy for others?

You're not doing a very good job of signalling how virtuous you are. It's like you're saying that you might care a bit about people drowned in the river if you could be bothered to consider it in the first place. I'm just not sensing any passion in your words.

 

[RF667799]

You might be thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Another serial murder of boys and young men, technically from Milwaukee, but was active in Northern Illinois & Chicago, claiming victims from both Illinois & Chicago.

(Wiki) Jeffrey Dahmer

(BTW - Between Dahmer, Gacy, and the Tylenol Murders, in the span of a couple short years, entering the 80's Chicagoans had their share of sordid revelations!)

Thanks. That could very well have been who I was thinking of.

 

[Chomsky]

We will. We've committed to that.

I hope not. I doubt Trump would do it to his base. He'll happily crush the economies of Blue cities - though!

 

[SoCal]

So no white people like to work hard huh?

Not for the peanuts farmers pay undocumented immigrants, would you? The MAWA wet dream; End all welfare for the deadbeats in Democratic cities and ship them out to work in the fields...

 

[Hamish Howl]

Not for the peanuts farmers pay undocumented immigrants, would you? The MAWA wet dream; End all welfare for the deadbeats in Democratic cities and ship them out to work in the fields...

You've never lived in a city.

 

[Chomsky]

Any farmer of employer for that matter that voted MAGA and had immigrants as the bulk of their employees, got what they voted for.

You've got that right!

Remember the WI MAGA guy, who's newlywed wife got grabbed by ICE coming back from their Puerto Rican honeymoon? And claimed he would now leave the country, in response? The new wife was a MAGA, too! You can't make shyte this up!

 

[Chomsky]

Thanks. That could very well have been who I was thinking of.

No thanks needed.

But yeah, Dahmer was beaten to death by a fellow inmate in prison.

 

[Questerr]

You're not doing a very good job of signalling how virtuous you are. It's like you're saying that you might care a bit about people drowned in the river if you could be bothered to consider it in the first place. I'm just not sensing any passion in your words.

Having human empathy is not “virtue signaling”.

 

[GhostFence]

That's a good question for your representatives isn't it?

Seriously though, you can easily look up how much money the farms in the Central Valley generate every year.

This myth that they will go out of business because they can't find workers is completely made up by the left to push their anti-Trump agenda.

When they do go out of business, remember we told you so.

 

[RF667799]

Having human empathy is not “virtue signaling”.

Claims of superior empathy are very human and nearly always self serving. There's a word for it. Sanctimonious.

 

[CLAX1911]

Having human empathy is not “virtue signaling”.

Saying that you have human empathy is virtue signaling.

 

[Girlpower]

Not for the peanuts farmers pay undocumented immigrants, would you? The MAWA wet dream; End all welfare for the deadbeats in Democratic cities and ship them out to work in the fields...

So white people won't work for peanuts but hispanics will?

You have no idea how racist that is and that's the scary part.

 

[ModernDiogenes]

If they charge six dollars for a tomato then nobody will buy then so that won't happen either.

Nobody needs to eat a tomato.

You guys need to learn how this all works. Many things will disappear or be produced by the end user. Vegetable gardens will come back, people will keep chickens. Bartering will become a heavily practiced means of exchange. The mender exchanging sewing for a few eggs, etc.

History isn’t just story telling. It’s hard data. Data that records trends. The documentation of our past behaviors.

We are repeating a cycle of social, economic and political behaviors that gave us our last Gilded Age, the Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression and eventually World War 2.

Of course this is all avoidable. Change the behaviors and the arc changes, you get different outcomes. However human beings are special stupid. They think you can do the same things and get different results. .

How foolish.

I’m 70. I might see it unfold but not have to live through it. My Grand children are f###ed. Are you in your 40’s? You’re going to get to enter your senior years living with this. Wow, that is going to suck.

 

[ModernDiogenes]

Altrightee. Even while I'm taking much of the other side of this issue, compared to many of my more regular "compatriots", I do see yours and others' opposing points.

But, I see rightful claims often being expressed overtly hyperbolically.

I did a quick looksee, and found 13% of a farmer's production costs are due to total labour costs. Google A.I also states this. According to my source (USDA), these labour costs also including worker benefits & insurance. Given that benefits and insurance are fixed per worker costs, I think it's fair to say we could literally double workers wages and your tomato would not go up more than 10%.

And given, as was explained to me above, California's current "AEWR" hourly wage of just over 20 bucks an hour, our 10% more expensive tomato allows us to offer field wages of over 40 bucks an hour.

Might there be some Americans willing to do this work for 40 bucks an hour? $320-400 for an 8-10 hour day? $1,600-2,000 a week for a 5 day week. $2,340-2,800 a week if working 7 days, as I understand is commonly available during picking seasons?

Might some Americans be willing to do that? I bet some would. I bet some would to moonlight a day or two a week from their regular gig, too. I also bet some working minimum wage job holders might consider it.

Now I realize the AEWR varies by state. But the numbers would obviously scale across the various local economies, with the same incentive quotient.

My point in all of this is that farm labour costs are a relatively small part of food costs, and we haven't tried to let free-market forces determine labour wage pricing in at least a half century (if ever).

Oh, one last thing: My the USDA's 13% labour product cost applies only to producer cost! We haven't factored in the transportation, wholesaler, and retailor costs. Factoring that in, I wouldn't doubt if our hypothetical doubling farm-workers' wages produces any more than a few percentage points in increased consumer pricing. Your buck-and-a-half large tomato, may now cost a buck-fifty-seven! Whoopee!

Reference:



Source:

Specialty crop farms have highest labor cost as portion of total cash expenses | Economic Research Service

A farm’s reliance on labor varies by commodity specialization. On average, labor costs (including contract labor, hired labor, and worker benefits, such as insurance) accounted for about 13 percent of total farm cash expenses in 2022. Farms specializing in the production of specialty crops...

www.ers.usda.gov

I’ll cop to attempting to making a point by pressing an extreme.

What will actually occur is they will fund a way to automate the picking of this kind of fruit without damaging it and those jobs will disappear.

See above for the rest of what is, more likely than not, coming if we don’t figure out the notion that same behaviors produce same results.

 

[CaughtInThe]

The problem is we've dug such a deep hole for ourselves over the decades, we are now dependent. Unless of course you believe this as a good thing, importing global labour as a global economic commodity?

Don't you see this as at least distasteful? To bring-in desperate underprivileged third-worlder's, to work under working conditions and pay American's find unviable?

The only reason I might go along with this idea may be due the seasonal demand aspects of the employment. If we simply don't have the labour pool, regardless of the pay rate and conditions offered. And then only with pay and conditions commensurate with what Americans expect.

Otherwise, I believe these jobs should be subject to free-market forces. Pay enough, and offer reasonable enough working conditions, and Americans - if desairing employment - will work those jobs.

One final note: Obviously, we can't shock the system by making changes overnight. But I'd like to try to slowly & gradually shift to a free-market employment model, to see if Americans really won't work these jobs. Because the same has been said about many other jobs Americans supposedly "won't work", yet in my youth - many of my American friends and neighbors did indeed work those jobs.

It's the free market and capitalism that creates this environment.

Business owners and CEOs saw that they could move their factories from the north down to the south for cheaper labor/more profit. Then they saw they could move their labor force to China for cheaper labor/more profit.

Farmers saw that they could employ migrant workers for cheaper labor/more profit.

If left to their own devices, the capitalists would have banned unions, we would have no minimum wage and people would still be buying everything at the company store.

So, if we're going to make it where we don't have any migrant workers and we're paying pretty good money (and benefits) so that Americans will take those hard jobs then we're probably going to have to pass laws to force the capitalists/business owners/CEOs and the free enterprise people to pay more.

Consumers will also have to be prepared to pay a lot more for groceries permanently going forward.

 

[Questerr]

Saying that you have human empathy is virtue signaling.

So one has to be a sociopath to not be virtue signaling?