Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

From there, we get to "would you die without them? If yes, maybe they're underpaid. Maybe $18K a year just isn't fair pay under any circumstances, not if we can't force people via a "well, you could always die" clause.

As for the value they create - you have food available to you. How valuable is that to you? Would you like it if farm workers applied the "well, you could always die or do it yourself" clause?

Because at some point, that becomes an option.

In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or economics, but morality. Its advocates refuse to come to terms with the fact that wages are market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of oil, steel, corn, or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.

Even if it could, that value would be so enormous that there are simple economic constraints on what's possible in terms of remuneration. Lot's of people are allocated what are probably criminally small portions of the value they create.

For instance, if the sanitation engineers in a city disappeared, you wouldn't want to be in that city 3 months later. The city's streets would be filled with rotting garbage, and that would be the least of it's problems. Its grey- and black- water processing systems would be long since collapsed. And that city'd better hope that no industrial actors took the opportunity to dispense of troublesome pollutants despite the lack of a functioning sanitation system.

The thing is, despite the critical importance of the guys running our sanitation systems, and the enormous value the environment they maintain confers on us, in my own city, not one of them makes USD300 grand a year. (Or even USD200 grand. You get the idea.) A lot of civilization collapses without them, but they are still some of the lowest paid professionals in all of engineering.

All that's due to the same economic limitations that constrict remuneration for farmworkers. They are absolutely essential. They create enormous value. Unfortunately, the way the system is set up, there is not much in the way of resources to reward them.

We can discuss changing the system, but I doubt most people would like the outcome of that exercise. That would definitely go under "Be careful what you wish for."

You could do the math...

Over the next 4 months, if you get laid off and you were making less than $60k, you're almost guaranteed to not be negatively financially impacted. Over a longer horizon, who knows what else congress might pass. Maybe in 5 months you'll be screwed. Maybe not. Who knows?

The government is sending everyone making less than $60k a one-time $1200 transfer (federally tax free), plus $600 (federally tax free) per week. This is a total of $11,600 (if you're laid off). Adjusted for taxes on an annual basis, that's over $50k.

Then you add in state unemployment. Even somewhere like Florida that has one of the lowest maximum unemployment payouts in the country ($275/week), will almost certainly push you over $60k on an annualized basis.

California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio (representing about 40% of the country) all pay roughly a max of $460/week.

Generally, if you make $50k, most states will pay you out close to $460. Some like Florida will pay much less. Some like Massachusetts will pay much more.

Over the 4 month period, this would push your income up to $11,600 (federally tax free) + $8000 (taxed). On an annualized, tax-adjusted basis, the average person making $40k who is laid off would now be making close to $80k.

That's better than 78% of Americans.

Additionally, you could read the bill. The bill sates you can file for unemployment if you quit your job because you are impacted by Coronavirus -- which includes 1) if you get the virus, 2) if you take care of someone that has the virus, or 3) if you believe working puts you in danger of contracting the virus.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/coronavirus-unemployment-payment...

Additionally, do you have a source that most nurses go into the job to help people and not make money? Anecdata is not data, but I'm good friends with several nurses, and every single one of them doesn't like the job, but thinks it's a good option because the pay is good. Maybe you have the opposite experience. A study would be nice, but I'm not able to find one.

I don't know any nurse aids.

You... you're calling that _harmful_?

Cool.

Nobody "has" to be exposed, protective gear would work just fine. And no, exposing farmworkers doesn't help to flatten the curve. The curve would be equally flat if they weren't exposed.

What you just said is "Somebody has to die, let's kill the farmworkers so we're safe". You might want to rethink.

What we need to do is stop exploiting them. They're not at high risk because they need to be, they're at high risk because we're not paying them well. Because we withhold even the options for basic hygiene for them. Because we value profit over human life.