North Carolina needed 6,500 farm workers. Only 7 Americans stuck it out.

[underpants]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/15/north-carolina-needed-6500-farm-workers-only-7-americans-stuck-it-out/?utm_term=.8ce5d8b4cf62

That data is interesting, because it describes the labor market before any immigrant workers are recruited. That, as Clemens says, "allows us to assess the willingness of native workers to take farm jobs before they can even be offered to foreign workers, meaning that this study does not miss any impact caused by people who self-select out of an area or occupation because of competition with foreign workers."

That willingness, he finds, is basically nonexistent. Every year from 1998 to 2012, at least 130,000 North Carolinians were unemployed. Of those, the number who asked to be referred to NCGA was never above 268 (and that number was only reached in 2011, when 489,095 North Carolinians were unemployed). The share of unemployed asking for referrals never breached 0.09 percent.

Neither Clemens nor the organizations putting the report out are exactly neutral parties in this debate, of course, but the data they present is fairly compelling. It seems clear that it would take a quite large increase in agricultural wages to get native workers to do these jobs, an increase that could very well put the farms in question out of business. Given that, making it easier to bring in agricultural workers appears to both dramatically benefit those workers and make life slightly more convenient for the industry in question.

[Initech]

1. No one wants to do back breaking work for less than minimum wage.

It's not the jobs. People can talk shit about jobs all they want. It's the wages! The wages are what sucks! It's the wages and the working conditions. It doesn't take a Harvard economist to figure that out!

[Warpy]

2. Yeah, yeah, they're all lazy SOBs who'd rather loaf on unemployment than do honest work

blah blah hate American labor blah blah blah.

Instead of reporting raw numbers, why not report on the reasons people give for turning the work down? That would make for an honest story. This does not, not even with its mention of extremely low wages.

My guess is that first would be "doesn't pay enough." Second might be "too far away, would cost more in gas than I'd make." Third might be "not my area of work, I wouldn't be very good at it." And so on.

However asking people why they turn available jobs down is not the Republican way, nor would the story ever be published. Asking labor what is actually going on is almost as taboo as doing a positive story about labor.

[underpants]

3. Well said

[AnnieBW]

4. That's Why They Had Slaves

So they could get cheap agricultural labor. They want to go back to those days.

[Lucinda]

5. KNR

[mountain grammy]

6. When I was a teenager living in CT

many kids worked the tobacco fields. It was hot and dirty and menial work, I lasted one summer. For a 13 year old, it was decent money, but the real workers were the migrants. When we went back to school, the migrant workers did it all. Now, this was nearly 60 years ago. The migrant workers were mostly white, and after the harvest in CT, they headed south.

I'm sure the shade tobacco industry in CT is very different now.

[ProudLib72]

7. So get rid of unemployment in NC

Set those lazy SOBs straight. Get off your butts and do some real work for a change instead of whining about having it so hard living off of taxpayers.


Personally, I think that this information needs to be brought to the attention of every repuke snowflake in the midwest who brings up the topic of liberals living off of welfare.

[PoiBoy]

8. Actually I can see this as the second step in their plan...

Step 1: round up all the "illegals" you can find...
Step 2: Kill unemployment, welfare and other social programs for the underserved and needy...

this will essentially force a lot of poor folks to take a job... any job to survive...

Republicons are going to hell....

[HoosierDebbie]

9. Step 3

Step 3: Make the poor folks move to tiny houses on tiny plots of land after convincing them they are trendy and fun

Step 4: Take over all of the open land to build more Trump Golf Courses.

[workinclasszero]

10. I think the republicans want to force out undocumented folks

Then force the old, sick, poor and their children into laboring from sunup to sundown picking crops till they drop dead.

You know if you are on welfare, unemployment, SSI, or food assistance.

It's coming I bet.

[RealityChik]

11. Alabama tried deportation too

And failed BIGLY!! So did Georgia. It was a YUGE disaster.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/undocumented-workers-immigration-alabama

[Motown_Johnny]

12. An excellent argument for increased pay and benefits.

I see an opportunity to employ displaced coal workers from the region, if only the workers were paid what they deserve.

[scarletlib]

13. It is hard working in the fields.

In addition farmers have pointed out that doing the work correctly is actually a learned skill even if we don't think of it that way. People doing this work have to know the proper way to harvest the fields. They are quick and efficient--a skill the ordinary 'joe' taking the job doesn't know.

[Lee-Lee]

14. i don't like the argument that we need immigrants to exploit for cheap labor

Quite frankly the argument that we have to have these brown skinned people brought in from other countries so we can pay then slave wages is only a small step removed from the arguement that we need to keep the black skinned people from voting or learning to read so we have cheap exploitable labor to work the fields, and that is only a step removed to from arguement we need to keep bringing slaves from Africa for cheap farm labor.

At what point will we just realize we need to pay everyone a real living wage to the point people are willing to do the job without needing to exploit the most desperate members of society who are the easiest to take advantage of?

[DFW]

15. One has to wonder just who will really be applauding these moves

Certainly not the farmers, who have calculated in the costs of their foreign labor into their yearly budgets Certainly not the migrant workers, who counted on the work and wages to support their families back home. Certainly not the grocers across America, who counted on a stable cost/pricing structure for the produce they offer from year to year. Crtainy not the American consumers, who county on certain price stability for food.

So, then who is supposed to be the beneficiary of this increase in our "Security?" Trump and McTurtle? Congressional Republicans, who can now say how "tough" they are being on immigration? Obviously, people who never had to pay any attention to their own personal household food budgets.

And what's their next PR move, anyway? Does Trump expect to show up at the border crossing between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, shaking hands with migrant farm workers heading south, happy to be be relieved of the burdens of their jobs, and with their former employers, now blessed with the task of harvesting acres of produce on their own, with 30 minutes of help a day from Grandpa?

Like everything else with Trump (and, mostly, the Republicans in general) This is ALL FOR SHOW. It helps no one and hurts many. Story of their life, really, I shouldn't really have any cause for surprise.