[montag813]

>The second step is create a guest worker program. This addresses a lot of the agri-need for illegals. They can come for the season, work, then they go home. It keeps us from having apples that cost $10 each.

We have such a visa program already. Greedy growers avoid it because they can pay less with illegal slave wages. Btw, labor costs are only 6% of retail cost. DOUBLE wages and you won't get anywhere near "$10 apples." You really drank the Kool Aid from the big glass.

[RainMan]

If prevailing minimum wage were applied to crops, you certainly WOULD get runaway inflation in food.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016721033_apusfoodandfarmapplepickers2ndldwritethru.html

This article is from 11/9/11, talking about how apples are rotting on the trees because the season was late and the illegals moved on to other crops, and the locals who are unemployed dont want to work for those wages. Crops are usually paid piece-meal, which means you get paid for exactly how much you pick. This flys in the face of minimum wage, which values time, not productivity. The wages would more than double ... they would be an order of magnitude higher, than what is presently paid, and yes, that increase in cost is the baseline of which downstream services are multiplied at. The end result is a $10 apple.

[Electric Graffiti]

"Btw, labor costs are only 6% of retail cost. DOUBLE wages and you won't get anywhere near "$10 apples." You really drank the Kool Aid from the big glass."

Very good point, I hear this canard all the time. Yet they forget the tax cost of schooling 5 illegal alien children of this one apple picker [50 grand a year], Not to mention welfare, health care, crime, etc.

The MASSIVE hidden cost to the taxpayer is STAGGERING. I'd rather pay twice as much for an apple and have my property taxes cut in half.