“Kick out all the illegal immigrants in a nationwide raid. Practically, that won’t work, and it would have a devastating effect on our economy. Are you willing to pay $5 for a head of lettuce? Are you willing to pay $12 for a sandwich?”
Here we go with the lies again......
Yes, one more time about the lie that if we don’t have illegal aliens we won’t be able to afford to eat!!!
Without illegal aliens, the price of agricultural products and other goods and services will NOT soar. The definitive study on this subject is the University of Iowa’s “How Much Is That Tomato?” The study concludes that ‘since labor is such a small component of the end-price of agricultural products (which includes price to the growers, transportation costs, processing /storage costs, grocers’ profit, etc.), using minimum wage workers instead of illegal aliens would increase prices of agricultural products by approximately 3 percent in the summer and 4 percent in the winter ... hardly the making of $10 heads of lettuce, $25 hamburgers, $1,000 per night Days Inn hotel rooms like the pro-illegal alien lobby claims.
HeadOfLettuceCostIf we doubled the wages of farm workers, the cost of a head of lettuce would increase by 6 cents to $1.06. For labor costs to force lettuce to $5 per head, ...
www.lawatchdog.com/HeadOfLettuceCost.html - 6k -
“When you take home a $1 head of lettuce, only 19 cents go to the farmer; and six cents of that go to the worker who picked it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191146,00.html__
“Many people fear the first part of such a response, claiming that prices for fruits and vegetables would skyrocket, fueling inflation. But since all unskilled labor — from Americans and foreigners, in all industries — accounts for such a small part of our economy, perhaps four percent of GDP, we can tighten the labor market without any fear of sparking meaningful inflation. Agricultural economist Philip Martin has pointed out that labor accounts for only about ten percent of the retail price of a head of lettuce, for instance, so even doubling the wages of pickers would have little noticeable effect on consumers.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/krikorian200401070923.asp
AND
“According to the University of California, the cost is about 22 cents to grow and harvest a head of lettuce. Of that, about 15 cents goes for farm labor. If we doubled the wages of farm workers, the cost of a head of lettuce would increase by 15 cents - even less if labor-saving machines are justified.....For labor costs to force lettuce to $5 per head, farmers would have to pay field workers $280 an hour”.....Glenn Spencer...
ttp://libcom.org/news/article.php/minutemen-anti-racist-action-050306
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/search?q=lettuce