Sometimes "nobody doing it" is the correct answer. It might not be economically viable for the USA to grow strawberries. We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

In the long-term, automation may help.

We can also pay a tiny bit more for our strawberries. At retail level, the cost of farm labor is is tiny portion of the total cost.

Crops don't rot on the vine if farmers know the labor situation in advance. Some will decide not to grow that crop. Others will find labor, paying more if required.

Whenever the supply of illegal aliens is reduced, wages rise. The "living wage" can not happen in the presence of illegal aliens. Once wages rise, Americans take the jobs. You can even see this today in the record-low unemployment rates.

> Sometimes "nobody doing it" is the correct answer. It might not be economically viable for the USA to grow strawberries. We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

I actually agree with this, but society has decided that "food security" is an important component of national security and that the country would like to maintain domestic food production even if it is uneconomical. And that's fine, if that's what the public wants, but once you do that you have to live with the consequences, like being forced to choose between illegal labor and rotting crops.

> In the long-term, automation may help.

Maybe, but a lot of the produce-picking that can be automated already has been. What's left is crops that, for whatever reason, are much harder to automate.

> At retail level, the cost of farm labor is is tiny portion of the total cost.

I'd like to see a source for this.

> Crops don't rot on the vine if farmers know the labor situation in advance

Please actually read my two links. The first is from 2012, and the second is about how the situation persisted through 2016. You're saying four years of Georgia's law wasn't enough advance notice?

It wasn't four years of a consistent labor situation without any expectation of change. It was four years of ups and downs with changing politics. It would be reasonable for a farmer to expect that there will be a massive amnesty, and then that doesn't happen. Some farmers simply have four years worth of emergency funds and a whole lot of stubbornness.

Also, I should have said "crops MOSTLY don't rot on the vine" because:

Even if the labor supply is stable, some crops will still be left to rot. The production of the land and the demands of the consumers are both subject to change. This affects the price. Given the current price, some farms may decide to not bother harvesting.

Farms aren't always 100% serious. Lots of them are almost a hobby, or for tax reasons. (if you can claim your home is a farm, you may pay lower property taxes, and there are even income tax advantages)

>We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

> Whenever the supply of illegal aliens is reduced, wages rise. The "living wage" can not happen in the presence of illegal aliens. Once wages rise, Americans take the jobs. You can even see this today in the record-low unemployment rates.

So we import our strawberries and wages will rise? How can both of these things be true? And the alternative is we won't eat strawberries anymore?

What you're proposing is setting our country up to be a worse place on the individual level "hey, why can't I find strawberries in my grocery store?" and on the national level, because we'll be beholden to whoever we're importing from.

There's a reason why a country should grow its own food. It's critical for our national security that we not be dependent on outsiders for something so basic.

Whoever told you they're doing this to "Make America Great Again" was lying to you. Not being able to buy strawberries would make America worse.

Bullshit. If the pay is right, you will find plenty of people to pick produce. But in a world where people expect $15/hour for work that is leisurely in comparison (fast food), paying that much for hard labor ain’t gonna cut it.

> Bullshit.

I provided sources showing that this is, empirically, what happens, no matter what you would like to believe.

> If the pay is right, you will find plenty of people to pick produce.

Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it. That is the fundamental issue here.

> I provided sources showing that this is, empirically, what happens, no matter what you would like to believe.

I can’t read the second one, but I’ve seen the arguments in the first one a million times — a whole lot of whining about how it’s absolutely impossible to find workers. No, you can’t find them at the price you want. Show me the farmer offering $30/hour plus benefits. You can’t. Even in the first article they peg “skilled” labor at $15-20/hour with the unskilled earning less. Guess what, I can get that a McDonald’s so try harder Mr. Farmer.

> Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it.

So I take it you were against the recent ~doubling of fast food wages in some localities to $15/hour then? Nah, probably not, I’m guessing you used the same argument so many others did: “what’s your problem, it’ll add like three cents to the cost of your Big Mac.” Well, I’d argue that doubling or tripling farm labor costs would only add a dime to the price of a basket of strawberries. Who cares? Pay real wages for real work and stop making excuses for what amounts to modern day slave labor.

We are drifting away from my original claim here, into new claims where I actually mostly agree with you. The original claim was "Illegal immigration hurts low-skilled American workers", and I responded saying "No it doesn't, because those immigrants are taking jobs that wouldn't otherwise be filled, at least in the produce market that presently exists".

Whether people should be willing to may more for their produce, and whether the treatment of these workers is ethically defensible - those are separate questions. I would be totally fine with paying real wages for produce-picking and then subsequently tightening immigration, but there's the paying market we'd like to have and the one we've actually got.

> Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it. That is the fundamental issue here.

the market will correct itself.

why would anyone want to pick raspberry for $10 an hour when I can get paid more working at in & out. Basically we should support shitty working conditions and black market labor because people dont wanna pay more for their produce?

> the market will correct itself.

...and the market of voters will "correct" the elected politicians. Which is why no politician is foolish enough to do this, and they have a monopoly on making laws.

YES. Somebody gets it.

Seriously. Stories abound about millennials (or anybody) not willing to do manual labor, waiting for higher-end jobs.

And it makes sense. We pay for everyone to go to 12 years of public school, learning calculus, history, chemistry, literature, etc.., only to work picking strawberries for the rest of their lives?

Fuck that.

The American labor force isn't designed for these kinds of jobs. I can't imagine any smartphone addicted millennial to do manual labor. In fact, we'd be more honest about our economy if we actually banned these jobs for Americans, and only allowed unskilled immigrants to do them, and deal with it from there.