[xienze]

> Are you under the mistaken impression that increasing wages paid would cause people to work those jobs?

Has anyone actually tried paying $25 per hour plus benefits for strawberry picking?

Let me guess, you're entirely consistent in your beliefs and likewise oppose the $15/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. Because after all, that would lead to runaway inflation.

[mozumder]

> Has anyone actually tried paying $25 per hour plus benefits for strawberry picking?

Yes. Actually here's one article about farmers offering $25/hr picking strawberries:

http://komonews.com/news/local/local-berry-farmers-lament-la...

Their crops are getting ruined because they can't get workers.

I can't believe people don't understand how comfortable the average millennial is in this life, and how completely unnecessary it is for them to work hard labor.

And there's no faking it in economics. If you artificially raise prices for unskilled labor, you're going to raise inflation, and now you're back to square one in needing to raise wages again.

We need to have wages tied with age and skill level/profession. A blanket minimum wage is just a dumb idea. Teenagers don't need $15/hour, as they should be at school. The head of a family household does.

[xienze]

> Yes. Actually here's one article about farmers offering $25/hr picking strawberries:

Sounds like Mexicans weren't willing to do it either. What changed from year to year? Clearly there's something else at play if they couldn't even get Mexicans to do it. The article doesn't mention that the farmer is exclusively hiring legal citizens, Washington State is ranked 15th for Hispanic population, and the farm is near a major metro area, so I don't buy the argument that there aren't enough Mexicans available either. It's clearly something else.

> Teenagers don't need $15/hour, as they should be at school. The head of a family household does.

Great, now you've just created an incentive to not hire anyone older than some particular age in a low-skill industry.

[stale2002]

Then pay them 50$ an hour.

I know tons of people who'd take that job.

Raise it to 100$ an hour and I'll volunteer to do it myself.

If prices go up, then prices go up. Supply and demand.

[oblio]

Let's use logic here. What happens to the price of strawberries if the price of labor goes up 5-10x?

Which people are most affected by the change in price?

[stale2002]

The price of strawberries will go up by 10% then.

Labor is a small part of the total costs of farming. Large amounts of costs are in capital equipment, land, packaging, retail location selling and transportation.

If you are really worried about high priced items that affect poor people, then perhaps we should be getting more immigrants that create these expensive things like healthcare.

If you are a doctor, they should automatically approve your visa application. Lets drive down that price of healthcare! If you make 100k+, auto approval as well. More tax money please! NOT strawberry workers though.