If a farmer can’t get a legal worker (a high school kid or an adult) to work in their fields, then they need to either raise the wages, or start using mechanized pickers. That’s the way a real free market should work.
But in no way should the cost of their savings in labor by using cheap labor performed by immigrants (illegal and other) be passed onto taxpayers, which is what happens. I’ll pay more for blueberries if they are picked in a way that doesn’t cost me in taxes. Actually I won’t because I have 9 blueberry bushes that I pick myself.
In today’s corrupt crony political environment the USA labor market is distorted whereby politicians turn a blind eye to illegals, or bring in a steady stream of other immigrants that give profits for a few, but cost society billions in costs of welfare etc by usurping the free market.
We’re assuming it’s mostly illegales there.
In a competent Federal oversight they wouldn’t be quibbling about star berry pickers. They’d want to know if the workers were legals or not.
Distortion of the free market happens because of subsidies to some and the costs passed on to others. Politicians taking care of constituencies bends free market rules. We need to end all the giveaways to business, corporations and individuals that gives us distortions and redistribution of wealth.
“But in no way should the cost of their savings in labor by using cheap labor performed by immigrants (illegal and other) be passed onto taxpayers, which is what happens. I’ll pay more for blueberries if they are picked in a way that doesn’t cost me in taxes. “
Do you shop at Walmart?
“If a farmer can’t get a legal worker (a high school kid or an adult) to work in their fields, then they need to either raise the wages, or start using mechanized pickers.”
That’s right; instead, companies do an end-run around “the market”. Any American earning over $30K has forces at work either sending their job overseas or importing immigrants (legal or otherwise) to do it. That is the stark reality facing the American middle class today, and it won’t be improving any time soon. The best hope for the American worker is a nuclear war between India and China and a conventional war between Mexico and the Philippines; nothing against those people, but that’s the truth.