I say all able bodied AMERICANS can work for the same wages that the illegal's do if they would do just one thing, and that is LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS!
Absolute rubbish. An American can not work for an illegals same wage and even keep a roof over their head much less feed their Children, keep 'em clothed etc.. After taxes, INS , etc..etc.. they would have zero. Ridiculous.
Of the migrants in California today, anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent, depending upon the crop, are illegal immigrants.
The hourly wages of some California farm workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen 53 percent since 1985. Migrants are among the poorest workers in the United States. The average migrant worker is a twenty-eight-year-old male, born in Mexico, who earns about $5,000 a year for twenty-five weeks of farm work. His life expectancy is forty-nine years.
That's like $5.00 an hour (using a 40 hour work week) which we all know they work much longer hours than that.
So the big corps are probably paying close to 3.xx dollars an hour plus board. Try living off that as an American.
Heck you would be better off trying to live off what a newspaper delivery boy earns than a migrant farm workers salary. Gimme a break.
That may be true in CA but around here in VA, the good workers drive fairly nice looking cars & trucks.
I know several that own their own house.
Granted their houses aren't much to look at but they keep their bills paid and their kids in school.
They work hard and I can assure you that they make a little more than $5.00 an hour.
We have lots of them working in the different types of construction business.
Some are legal and some are not.
One of the larger farms where we hunt groundhogs pays an average of $18,000 to $25,000 a year with free rent for the better workers that stay all year.
In the winter they help feed and milk cows, in the spring they are getting the fields and orchards ready, in the summer they are making hay, mending fences, picking the vegatables and in the fall they are picking fruit.
Sounds like more than 25 weeks worth of work to me.
A lot of them stay all year round working at other jobs after the main farm work is over.
Some go north, most go south and some go back where they came from.
They don't live like you or me but they do seem to get along quite well.
If need be I think I could live off that.
Not the way I am acustomed to but with free medical at the emergincy room and free rent, I could get along.
Heck, with the way my business has been the last 4 years and all the expences, I"m not much better than that now!
LONGTOM
