In a column titled “Chicken or broken egg”, Associate Editor Gil Smart writes:
1) “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean hourly wage for farm workers who, among other things, “attend to animals produced for animal products, such as meat, fur, skins, feathers, eggs, milk and honey,” is $11.56 an hour. Assuming a 40-hour work week, that’s just over $24,000 a year.”
2)“… maybe we should be willing to accept higher prices in return for higher wages. Economically, America is caught in a downward spiral in which we argue that offshoring or tolerating high levels of immigration are beneficial because they lead to lower consumer prices. But lower consumer prices are necessary in an environment where wages are low.”
3)“But higher wages in one sector could put upward pressure on wages in other sectors. There’s a famous story of how Henry Ford in 1914 more than doubled the average autoworker’s wage. Liberals like to say he did this so his workers might be able to buy what they produced. That’s wrong — Ford paid the higher wages specifically to reduce attrition — but his move boosted workers’ buying power. They made more, so they could afford more. What a concept.”
WATCHDOG: Two wags of the tail! This is a well researched and thoughtful article.
1)$24,000 a year in pay is more than most hotel line workers earn, assuming they are not receiving health care benefits (which are worth between $2.50 and $3.00 an hour.) If husband and wife earned that much, their combined income would lift them into middle class. However, as Smart points out or implies, most Americans may not be in the physical or psychological condition to undertake such work.
2) Without heavy unionization or government fiat so that an entire industry in a given market place faces the same labor cost consideration, there will be a race to the bottom in order to remain competitive. With a return to prosperity, there will be greater demand for labor from other sources which will have the benign effect of increasing wages… perhaps not enough in some industries.
3) For once, someone other than NewsLanc has the Henry Ford story correct! Even Robert Reich perpetuates the myth.
