Mr. Hanson describes picking peaches: "The 12-foot ladder is heavy and unstable, especially when you must clamber up among the top branches 60 or 70 times a day and then descend with 50 pounds of peaches. ... You tend to run rather than walk because at piece-rate labor, you can make $90 to $120 in a 9-hour shift.
What complete horse-crap. I did these exact jobs, and worse, and for far less then the $10-15/hr he is quoting here. And considering most of this work is under the table, add 50% to figure out how much you'd have to make just to equal it as a tax payer.
Here's at least one guy that would love to double his rate... former Microsoft employee in Washington state, now working a deli for $8/hr... taxed.
It was indeed hard work, but the paper route in my neighborhood was taken & it was one of the precious few ways this 13 year old could make money.
That is suprising coming from Mona Charen, who wrote a favorable story but on this she ought to know better. Upstate NY has never had illegal aliens and all the work has gotten done, no matter the job. Same with Canada. For some reason few want to talk about that.