Giving Farmworkers a Significant Raise in 2020

How much would it cost consumers to give farmworkers a significant raise? A 40% increase in pay would cost just $25 per household, Economic Policy Institute, Daniel Costa and Philip Martin, October 15, 2020

A 40% increase in pay would cost just $25 per household . . .

This was up in 2020 at posted by Dan. Doing some of the housework around Abgry Bear, I ran across this post as displayed by Dan. I added the chart. Framers are still the smallest portion of costs. Due for an increase?

Two years later, the costs would not be that much more.

The increased media coverage of the plight of the more than 2 million farmworkers who pick and help produce our food. Whom the Trump administration has deemed to be “essential” workers for the U.S. economy and infrastructure during the coronavirus pandemic. Highlighted is the difficult and often dangerous conditions farmworkers face on the job, as well as their central importance to U.S. food supply chains. For example, photographs and videos of farmworkers picking crops under the smoke- and fire-filled skies of California have been widely shared across the internet, and some data suggest that the number of farmworkers who have tested positive for COVID-19 is rivaled only by meat-processing workers. In addition, around half of farmworkers are unauthorized immigrants and 10% are temporary migrant workers with “nonimmigrant” H-2A visas; those farmworkers have limited labor rights in practice and are vulnerable to wage theft and other abuses due to their immigration status.

Despite the key role they play and the challenges they face, farmworkers are some of the lowest-paid workers in the entire U.S. labor market. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that it would not collect the data on farmworker earnings that are used to determine minimum wages for H-2A workers, which could further reduce farmworker earnings.

This raises the question: How much would it cost to give farmworkers a significant raise in pay, even if it was paid for entirely by consumers? The answer is, not that much. About the price of a couple of 12-packs of beer, a large pizza, or a nice bottle of wine.

How much would it cost consumers to give farmworkers a significant raise? A 40% increase in pay would cost just $25 per household, Angry Bear, Dan Crawford