You've Heard it Before

Table grapes are picked today in California for $7 an hour, with an added bonus of 30 cents per box picked. That comes to $56 per 8 hour day. Let’s add in the 30 cents per box at a rate of one box every 10 minutes and that adds up to $14.40 or a grand total of $70.40 for the day. That would all add up to $352 per week, or $1,408 per month…and that adds up to $16,896 per year. A magnificent sum! Especially when considering that the Federal poverty level is currently at $19,350 for a family of 4.

So how would you spend your $1,408 dollars each month? You would need some shelter and a two bedroom apartment with utilities paid can be obtained for about $800. (I didn’t include a first and last, plus cleaning deposit) That leaves you with $608. How about food? Using an arbitrary number of $4 per person per day for all 3 meals ($1.33 per person per meal) that adds up to $480 per month. (That doesn’t include any meals in a restaurant. No Happy Meals!) Now we have $128 remaining. Transportation? There goes the $128. Health? Sorry, no money left. Clothing? Entertainment? Telephone? Savings? Oh, oh…I forgot to add in the cost of taxes, so we have to reduce the $1,408 to an actual number of $1,127.

You can see that these numbers aren’t going to work very well for the family unless more people in the family are working…or more boxes are picked!

And the biggest problem with these numbers is the fact that we, as a society, have become calloused and no longer wish to see the reality of the numbers. We don’t want to see the humanity behind the numbers. John Steinbeck wrote about both the reality and the humanity back in the 1930’s, in his book, The Grapes of Wrath. In the 1960’s, Cesar Chavez made us aware, once again, of the reality of the migrant workers life. Now, 70+ years later…what has changed? Well, Steinbeck’s migrant workers were Okies and today they are from Mexico. Other than that, nothing has changed.