John McCain said no American would pick lettuce for $50/hr. How about $1,000/wk?

[Deja Q]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/16/navarrette/index.html

Commentary: U.S. workers will pick that lettuce -- for $1,000 a week


Excerpt:

Big surprise. Everyone in Fresno is connected to agriculture, whether they realize it or not. That's the whole point. While many Americans tell themselves that they don't benefit in the least from illegal immigration, my friends in the San Joaquin Valley don't have that luxury. They're up to their necks in benefit. Oh, there are costs, too -- to schools, hospitals, jails, etc. But, after it's all said and done, Fresno and other agri-cities come out way ahead.

How do I know? Because they're not exactly asking illegal immigrants to leave. In fact, farm groups were part of the chorus calling for comprehensive immigration reform, including a call for new shipments of guest workers. That's because they know that without immigrant labor -- legal if can be, illegal if must be -- my beloved hometown would shrivel up like a raisin in the sun.

While you're just as likely to find illegal immigrants working on construction sites, or making beds in hotels, or cooking up breakfast in the local diner, many of them still gravitate to farms and ranches. And it's a good thing they do, farmers and ranchers say, because these are not jobs that Americans want.

Article has more.

Maybe if more Americans lived together and all pitched in, those small wage jobs added into one big kitty means more money for all to work with? Anybody else wanna form a commune? Wait, that's communist and that's wrong too.

[acmavm]

1. This story is pathetic. 'A reader' told him? What a pantload.

<snip>

Immigration restrictionists claim that Americans would line up for even the dirtiest and most distasteful jobs if only wages were higher. How much higher? A reader told me that he'd gladly go pick lettuce around Salinas, California -- for $1,000 a week.

I can't wait to share that story with the farmers. I hope they don't cough up their Caesar salads. It's not just that, at those wages, lettuce pickers would earn more than many cops and firefighters, nurses and teachers. Or that salads would cost as much as caviar.

<snip>

[Johonny]

2. Doesn't make sense

lettuce pickers would earn more than many cops and firefighters, nurses and teachers.


They pick what 1-3 weeks a year. So that would be like a 3 K summer job. Hardly what a teacher or a firefighter makes. Closer to what I got doing trash for 5 weeks every summer as a kid.

[TahitiNut]

3. If the employers of non-citizens were REQUIRED to pay at least three times the minimum wage ...

... you'd better believe they'd find U.S. citizens willing and eager to do the work!