The Economics of $50 Lettuce
John McCain has famously said that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should” and in addition to being rather offensive, his “you can’t do it” rant about the problem with paying people $50 an hour to pick lettuce is a reminder of that:
What you can see happening here is that McCain knows which position he’s supposed to argue for — namely that it’s desirable that we allow relatively high levels of immigration to, among other things, do menial agricultural work. His antagonist says Americans would do these jobs if the jobs paid more. Rather than concede the obvious — for enough money you’d certainly be able to find someone to do just about everything — McCain argues that native born Americans are actually incapable of picking lettuce in exchange for any sum of money. “You can’t do it, my friends.”
Bad arguments in defense of bad positions are one thing, but there’s actually a very obvious problem with the idea of $50 an hour lettuce pickers, namely that lettuce would be extremely expensive if the pickers earned that much money. And broadly speaking there are many more Americans who eat food (i.e., all of us) than there are Americans who work on farms, so avoiding super-expensive agricultural wage rates generally works out well for us. One could, of course, mount some plausible counters to that position and the debate could rage on in an informed manner. But McCain — even though he was, at the time, at the center of the immigration debate as one of the main co-authors of a compromise he later disavowed while still wanted to get credit for bipartisanship for having been involved — doesn’t seem to understand the issue at all.
48 Responses to “The Economics of $50 Lettuce”
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September 12th, 2008 at 9:26 am
such a shame that only bloggers know about that clip.
Obama needs to get back on offense. PDQ.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:37 am
I’d pick lettuce for $50/hour, my friends. And I’m be glad to have the work.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:38 am
We must expose the lying Wizard of Oz, McCain!
Does the Truth Matter Any More? E. J. Dione
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/pos...
“Liar, Krugman of NYT, blasts McCain With the Truth”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9...
Republicans Hijacked 911, by Keith Olberman, Courage to Speak Truth!
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/09/spe...
How many more Journalists & Reporters will show courage and begin to do their duty and Inform the public as to truth and falsity? We should never again be lied into a False & Phony war by a President you want to have a beer with! Republicans strong on National Security? I don’t think so, after all 911 happened on their watch, but they have been allowed to distort the facts and public perception that it is the Democrats who are weak on national security! They have failed to properly enact the 911 Commissions recommendations which would make us a lot safer! Politicans who willfully and intentionally lie to the public are engaged in a betrayal of the public trust and such distortion should be deemed unethical and in some cases, criminal! We need a Media to be the third-wheel of democracy again and not a parrot of those who are corrupt, unless they are corrupt too!
Republicans are just as dismal on economics. It is an outrage or should be that the government can give millions of dollars to CEO’s from the failed Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac and yet, cannot give a second stimulus check to American citizens in these hard economic times? Republicans say No to a second stimulus while the Democrats say Yes to a second stimulus! Is the Republican Congress working for CEO’s or are they working for you, the people? We need a Government and a Congress to work for the People, not lie to the people, not bail out their own special interest groups and leave the people hanging. We need a government to put the burden of taxes on the rich where they belong and stop putting the tax burdens on the middle class and poor, those who can least afford it. We need a government who will put money into education and make that a national priority again, both lower and higher education and give more Pell Grants and less loans so that young people can once again achieve a higher education, get a good job and lift everybody up out of poverty. We need action and not more spin, talk and lies. We need a Congress who will vote Yes to bridges, roads, schools, health care. Who will invest in America and not in Iraq and in themselves and their special interest groups. America is dying. We need real Change and not the phony Wizard of Oz (McCain)!
September 12th, 2008 at 9:40 am
The problem is deeper than a lack of comprehension. The quote gets to the root of McCain’s philosophy, which was cribbed from Teddy Roosevelt. He believes that Americans are soft, that they cannot do certain jobs and are unwilling to sacrifice for higher goals. It’s TR’s “The Strenuous Life,” with the most overt racism and sexism taken out.
It sounds appealing until you remember that TR and McCain believe we can only regain “honor” and “vigor” by killing people abroad. It’s his fear of American softness that makes him so susceptible to neocons, who hold similar beliefs.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am
This has been brought up several times. Is there really some group of blog readers who were failing to imagine that paying much higher prices for lettuce picking might impact the price of lettuce? Is this assumed to be something missed by everyone but some set of economic cognoscenti?
September 12th, 2008 at 9:47 am
My friends, I’d definitely do it for $50/hour unless there are bugs out there. I hate bugs.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Is this assumed to be something missed by everyone but some set of economic cognoscenti?
Err, Matt kinda said it in this post.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Is this assumed to be something missed by everyone but some set of economic cognoscenti?
Err, Matt kinda said it in this post.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:02 am
McCain just doesn’t care about domestic policy. Its why he lurches from one side to the other on about every single thing.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Well, I hope the implication isn’t that McCain’s issuing of a direct challenge to anyone in his audience to a bet in which if he or she agreed to pick lettuce for the whole season for $50 / hr (and he said “anybody here”, not, “all of you”, or “everyone in America”, but presumably one hardy soul) that McCain necessarily is unaware that such a model implemented in the real world would impact the price of lettuce.
It’s a bet, a dare, a challenge, and the only point of doing so is to back up the argument that Americans simply couldn’t do it, and thus intentionally changing discussion from questions of cost, efficiency, or market impact.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Pick lettuce?
In what respect, Charlie?
September 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Matt, I basically agree, but perhaps you should do some more reading in economics. [I recommend the Krugman/Obstfeld International Economics for trade and monetary and Mankiw's Macroeconomics--can't think of a good Micro one though which is actually where this is going.]
If we stopped immigrants/temp. workers from picking lettuce what would happen is a few things: labor costs would probably go up some and then farmers/huge ag. operators would start substituting capital for labor. Some would be able to do this successfully and some would go out of business, and in the process we would probably start importing more vegetables. I’m all for treating immigrants with dignity, but that is what would happen. It isn’t a dicotomy between $50 lettuce or poorly paid labor.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:11 am
It’s a fact that people have to have lettuce, right? Like on their sandwiches and stuff. So $50/hour wages conflated with only incrementally lowered demand would lead to much higher prices, of course. The .com, mortgage and oil bubbles out of the way, the next bubble would be lettuce, which would hit the hippies the hardest.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:16 am
The economics of the situation isn’t Yglesias’s point. The point is that McCain asserts that there are jobs that Americans just won’t do regardless of the wage. Apparently, he thinks that we feel — all of us — that we’re too good for farm labor. He’s lunatic and insulting, of course. At $50/hour, there would be lines of applicants from NYC to the Salton Sea. During the first recession of the Reagan years, there were often thousands of applicants for whatever crap jobs were advertised. Human nature hasn’t changed in 25 years.
Whether lettuce could be sold profitably at $50/hour is an elephant.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Whether lettuce could be sold profitably at $50/hour is an elephant.
Exactly. Isn’t the point that McCain thinks Americans would be unwilling to do farm work for $50/hour? Does anyone here seriously agree with that?
September 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’ve seen this clip before, and I unambiguously support Obama-Biden, have sent $$ etc, but I just bet McCain’s talking point was $50/day (unless there are other examples of his use of $50/hr lettuce picking )
David, any Micro text would have the examples you are looking for, they’re all paraphrases of one another. I think Krugman and his wife something Wells have an Intro or Intro Micro text on the market.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
McCain’s focus on farm work disguises the larger issues. It’s also meat packing, construction, landscaping, child care, etc. People were doing those things for much less than $50/hr.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Is McCain proposing that immigrants are part of some sort of super-race that, unlike “my friends,” can pick letuce all day in the hot sun for less than $50 per hour?
I, for one, would like to welcome more of these genetically superior humans into our country.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
What I want to know is, how long is the growing season for lettuce. I mean, I’ve got about five weeks leave time banked right now and if I could do it without losing my job that actually pays slightly more than $50/hour, and even collect vacation pay while doing it, count me in.
And I don’t make the offer lightly. When I was 13 years old, living in South Jersey, I signed on to pick tomatos for Campbell Soup Co. It was backbreaking work and even then, in the 1960s, I was about the only out there in the fields speaking English. So, even though I’m about 45 years older and allowing for the fact that lettuce picking is possibly even more arduous than tomato picking, I think $50/hour, 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, for a five or six weeks would just about cover it for me.
McCain is so full of sh*t that I expect his hair to turn brown any day now.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:05 am
but I just bet McCain’s talking point was $50/day
No, he was talking to union construction workers. One of them said “pay them a decent wage” and that’s when he offered $50/hr. McCain may have no idea what $50 means to normal people, or he may believe that even an outrageous amount of money wouldn’t convince an American to pick lettuce but he meant $50/hr.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:22 am
What I want to know is, how long is the growing season for lettuce. I mean, I’ve got about five weeks leave time banked right now and if I could do it without losing my job that actually pays slightly more than $50/hour, and even collect vacation pay while doing it, count me in
A friend of mine, a college professor, used to vacation in northern Michigan picking fruit in the summer. He liked the work — the wage was low but fair — and it helped pay for his family’s stay there. The wage was far less than $50/hr.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
In fairness, let’s not take the speech out of context. McCain probably thought he was speaking to a crowd full of Republicans who “earn” $50 per hour of bank dividends.
POW POW McCain must think his supporters are a bunch of marshmallows, too soft and weak to know the meaning of pain or suffering or even an honest day’s work. This probably explains more of why Republicans don’t really like or trust him than all his phony Maverick grandstanding put together.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Jeffrey Davis’s point is the right one. The issue here isn’t McCain’s ignorance of economics. It’s that McCain doesn’t realize that millions of Americans *do* really hard, shitty jobs – just like picking vegetables in the sun. And they do them for a lot less than $50/hour.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
McCain’s comment is the perfect parody of the open borders crowd absurd argument that we need more immigrants to do “jobs Americans won’t do”.
Matt fails to appreciate the irony that McCain is simply mouthing, in exaggerated form, the rationale for turning a blind eye toward illegal immigration, something Matt has shown sympathy for on numerous occasions.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
The problem Matt is not that McCain doesn’t understand economics. No what this shows is: McCain has no idea that $50/hr is a great wage in the US. And not just for lettuce pickers. For like everybody except the rich people. But McCain thinks you’re only rich if the interest on your wealth exceeds $100k/yr ($50/hr). The problem isn’t an ignorance of economics. It’s being out of touch. That very thing Democrats are accused of all the time, but Republicans always seem to be guilty of.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Matt,
I didn’t view McCain as making that argument at all. Rather, I viewed him as arguing, “Until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, you have no standing to argue about labor regulations.” It’s a cheap rhetorical tactic designed not to convey the information that McCain thinks lettuce-picking is impossible, but that people should be afraid of arguing with John McCain.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
ed marshall — thanks for context, which convinces me that McCain absurdly meant $50/hr. Many years ago, I chopped cotton for a few weeks with my grandfather. Wage was nothing like $50/hr, even accounting for inflation
September 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I don’t need to tell regular readers that MattY has no idea what he’s talking about; apparently the BHO campaign needs to spend more time on their memos.
1. Labor prices make up only a small part of the cost, around 10%. If labor prices dectupled, the price of lettuce would go from $1 to $2.
2. As a result of that price rise, we’d import more lettuce. IOW, growers would take their operations to where the labor is, rather than using PoliticalCorruption (something MattY supports) to bring labor to them.
3. Some growers would go out of business. If it were possible to have negative sympathy, that’s where I’d be.
4. The government would stop restricting attempts at inventing machinery to do those jobs in an attempt to replace high-priced workers. Yes, that’s right: government policies favor using labor to machinery.
Here’s an example of someone else with a Spanish last name trying the same scam as MattY. Except, his pay grade is higher.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Matt, you really need to learn to be skeptical of the propaganda of the Cheap Farmworker Labor Lobby, of which McCain, as an Arizona senator, has always been a faithful servant.
Consider strawberries, the notoriously labor-intensive crop called “la fruta del diablo” by the stoop laborers who pick them. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted IC Davis agricultural economist Philip Martin:
“‘If (the consumer) spends $1 on a pint of strawberries, the farmer’s getting 18 cents. He gives about one-third of that to farmworkers, so they make 6 cents.’ So even if the labor cost were to double, that would still only be a 6 cent increase per pint.” [THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE | Effect on economy depends on viewpoint, by Carolyn Said, May 21, 2006]
For many fresh fruits and vegetables, the price increase would be significantly less. And, over time, growers would mechanize or, in the rare cases where that was impossible, would shift their operations to Mexico.
For more, see:
http://vdare.com/sailer/061008_pearanoia.htm
September 12th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
What’s also ignored is that for that “cheap” lettuce, we have to pay money in taxes to educate the immigrants’ children, to deal with the higher crime rates that his descendants will cause, to fund any emergency rom visits he might have, etc.
It’s not like that “cheap labor” is without costs, it’s just that those costs are externalized.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
My husband says they wouldn’t want me picking the lettuce because of my Monk (tv character) personality. I’d be too busy wiping the dirt and cutting off imperfections. But seriously, even with my medical condition I’d be willing to spend a few hours in the sun for $50.00 an hour. I’d share the day with other disabled people.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Oops. I left out that my disability is physical not mental as implied and I’m 65 years old but wouldn’t mind some extra money for my quilting habit. Then I could support more small business quilting stores and keep the economy rolling. And of course donate quilts to the needy around the world. (:
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