That's a pretty poor example. The laborers were paid $9.70/hr. No American would want to do that when you can make more working at a gas station.

That seems to be the biggest problem with lower class work in the US at the moment. Cost of living is always going up, but the companies want to pay the same paltry wages they were a few decades ago.

That article is several years old now, and maybe there are some regional factors at play, but as a farmer myself, these days I regularly see offers of $20/hour if you're willing to show up, and closer to $30+/hour if you bring any skills to the table. Despite that, there is still is a lot of struggle to fill those jobs.

And maybe the price just needs to go higher still. I'm not going to tell someone how much they have to work for. But it's interesting that – once you account for the significantly lower cost of living generally found in these rural areas – you're practically making programmer in a big city wages now and that's still not appealing to someone who is unemployed.

In a lot of ways, I think enraged_camel (and cobo) hit the nail on the head[1]. Nobody wants the identity of working on a farm. There are a lot of negative connotations related to that type of work that have been built up over the years.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074922

Farm labor tends to be seasonal; making programmer wages for a few weeks and then being unemployed might not be as attractive as a steady but lower paying job.

The jobs I'm thinking of are full time, year round, but I understand that may be an issue in some segments of agriculture.

Then the wages aren't high enough. Oil rig employees get paid plenty.

Great example. Huge pay by every metric, and plenty by your own assertion, and they still struggled to fill all the jobs at that price, at least before the crash. I think this really emphasizes how image plays the most important role.

I think that has more to do with the huge lifestyle sacrifices necessary to work on an oil rig.

The folks I know who worked the rigs during the "boom years" came only to earn as much as they could before burn-out finally did them in. Some of them miss the pay, but none of them seem to miss the job.

Kids used to do a lot of menial farm labor. At least I did... Try getting a 14-17 year old to do anything these days.

It was pretty frustrating job hunting as a 15-year-old. Nobody liked the idea of hiring someone with no work experience, even for minimum wage, and there were a lot of jobs that I seemed qualified for that were legally mandated to require people 18+.

The problems with children are really just problems with adults.

I suspect we're violently agreeing. Minimum wage is too high for the value provided by the jobs I used to do, although they were not value-less. And restrictions around child-labor are well-intentioned but occasionally produces sub-optimal results. Ten-year olds threading bobbins in a 1870s textile mill twelve hours a day is a different beast than a high-school kid picking potatos or strawberries for a few hours as a summer job.

You don't pick strawberries for a few hours after school - you have a limited window to harvest some crops and it's back-breaking, all-day work.

I don't understand. $9.70 is better than being unemployed. Your comment perfectly illustrates the point I'm trying to make (people care too much about what they're doing and/or where they're doing it -- this naturally leads to your identity being tired to your job). If it's not I'd love to hear the reasoning.

Jobs involve physical risks and opportunity costs.

There are plenty of truly poor people out there who I really do think would rather be homeless than toil dangerously.

9.70 doesn't pay for a broken arm or back pain years down the line

Not every job that pays $9.70 is necessarily dangerous, so I fail to see your point. That article is more of a representation of a greater potential issue.

> Not every job that pays $9.70 is necessarily dangerous

Right, hence the comment implying that a gas station job around that amount would get workers. But in a time where there is a significant push to make the minimum wage $15, it's not surprising that people won't do hard labor for $10.

Hard labor pays more than $10. You're missing the overall point, but OK. It still doesn't explain why foreigners take the jobs and not Americans.

Because the opportunity cost equation is different for them. $10/hr working hard labor vs. easy labor is the choice for American workers; $10/hr in the U.S. versus $4/hr elsewhere is the equation for the foreign workers. On top of that, they have the option of taking the $10/hr work for 4-6 months, and then travelling back to their home country where their cost of living is much lower and it works out the be the equivalent of $25-30/hr in purchasing power.

Maybe it'd help if the cost of living was lower here.

My point is that if you expect people to always work more for less, at some point people won't do it anymore. If you want Americans to do the work, you've got to make it worth it for them. There are many factors that go into whether or not it's worth it, like the stability of work hours, autonomy, ability to work your way up, and hourly pay. With no stability, autonomy, or room for growth, and always living under the threat that their work may be outsourced, it simply isn't worth it for Americans to do the work for $9.70/hr.

Again, I fail to see how being unemployed is superior to making money. Your point is correct, if you assume the person could get a job with the qualities you describe. If they could, they wouldn't be unemployed to begin with (unless it's by choice, of course)

Why is that foreigners are taking these jobs and not Americans?

I view things differently. Back in the 60s when unions were strong and jobs weren't outsourced, employees got their fair share of corporate earnings, and a laborer could afford a middle class life with a car, house, and nuclear family.

Look at things today. The return on labor has dropped significantly due to outsourcing and immigration dropping wages at a time when corporate earnings are higher than ever and socioeconomic mobility is at an all-time low[1]. Productivity is higher & GDP per capita is over $50k/yr, yet the majority of people, especially in the lower class, have not been benefiting from this. I guarantee the corporate managers make obscenely more money than the farm laborers do. I personally don't feel it's bad to feel entitled to my fair share of the work I put in.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the...

Interestingly, here in Canada union membership has only waned slightly over the years and the current unionization rate is almost equal to the USA's peak. Yet, we have all the same problems with wage stagnation for the majority of the population and a small group at the top reaping all the rewards of higher productivity.

That is interesting, I did not know that. What do you think is driving the change in Canada? Globalization? Or something else?

Protectionism. When the law grants a monopoly, small groups gain a huge advantage over everyone else.

Ironically, unions play their own part in that. Here in Canada we like to pick on teachers because, thanks to a strong union, they can make almost $100,000 for 8 months of work. Which is fine, and good for them, but the problem is that they are able to achieve that high income only because they actively prevent other people from doing the job. Someone who is stuck in a low-paying job has no avenue to compete against them, leaving that person stuck in a low-paying job while the teacher can start amassing wealth with the high income their job provides. This is how inequality happens.

Of course, not the same degree that you find with what is quite possibly the most insidious form of protectionism: Intellectual property. It's no coincidence that people like Bill Gates, who built a business on copyright law, are among the richest in the world. As soon as someone tries to offer the "Doors" operating system to fulfill the huge demand for such a product, they will get the pants sued off them. You can try to offer something sort of the same, but not really, but that doesn't put much pressure on the market for obvious reasons.

It would be kind of like if diary and poultry (Diary and poultry products have their own protectionist system in Canada, so I use that example as more than just a hypothetical) products were controlled by a certain group. You can grow celery to try and compete against them, but that's not really going to stop people from buying dairy and poultry if that's what the market wants. Celery is not cheese. As such, those who control the market profit greatly. A family friend is in the chicken business and he's been willing to share his wealth, and let's just say that I think a lot of startups would be pivoting to that business if there was a viable way in. The problem is, of course, that the protectionism doesn't allow a viable way in for everyone else.

I'm still not seeing the relevance of this compared to unemployment vs. a low wage manual labor job. Are you saying it's better to be unemployed?

If you're part of a household with multiple incomes, or you live with your parents, or you are able to take out a loan or live off savings such that you can take your time to educate yourself in a field or so on, then yes, it's definitely better to be unemployed.

For starters, human beings do not operate on pure logic, emotion has a significant effect on behavior.

At some point it becomes easier to beg for charity from family, friends and society​ so that it is not worth working. Hard labor that damages your body for minimum​ wage may not be worth it in the long term versus a cashier's position for the same wage.

Part of the problem is, you can go on Craigslist and find non-contract labor in that general area - starting at a wage of at least $10/hour. So $9.70 is simply not competitive at all.