On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, John Thornton wrote:
> Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> > So we could pay the workers in both industries a handsome wage and the
> > cost of the goods wouldn't more than, say double?
>
> According to the USDA farm value share is about 20% of retail cost of
> which labor is only part. Even if farm labor costs doubled how could
> this double the retail price?
I was figuring we'd have to much more than double the wages of migrant pickers or sweatshop workers to bring them up to the level of "handsome." But I agree: if wages are a small portion of farm costs, and farm costs are a fifth of retail costs, it seems wages could theoretically be raised enormously before the retail price was doubled.
Michael