The Seattle Times (online only) – 10/20

Hire our children instead

In extolling the economic benefits of illegal-alien agricultural labor, Seattle University law professor Richard Delgado, in effect, serves up the tiresomely familiar “lettuce argument”: If illegal aliens aren’t working the fields, lettuce will cost consumers $5 per head.

But UC Davis agricultural economist Philip Martin has shown that the field-labor cost included in a $1 head of lettuce is about $.06

Thus, we could triple wages for picking the crops — at which point Americans would do the jobs — and the cost of a head of lettuce would rise by 12 percent.

The numbers are similar for other crops.

So a family that spends $15 per week on produce would shell out about $100 more per year, a negligible tab for ending what’s virtually modern-day slave labor.

Citizens taking such jobs needn’t regard them as careers. Instead, these jobs are worthy introductions to the world of work for youngsters — and obviously preferable alternatives to our teenagers’ current regime of aimlessly cruising malls and getting fat.

I did similarly menial, but worthwhile, tasks when I was a kid.

Paul Nachman
Bozeman, Mont.