The farmers I used to work for are paying $12 to $15 per hour these days and still can't get local kids to lower themselves to do the work.
@Cripplecreek I have a significant lower back problem, not much cartilage left between L3, L4, L5. I could bend to pick veggies maybe four times and have to stop before pain set in and I couldn't walk the next day. I can do a lot of things, but repeated bending is not one of them.
Looking at those workers, who are not young kids, bending to pick veggies makes my mind see the pain I would be in, not including the heat those people must endure. If it were up to me to pick veggies, the country would starve, along with me.
I appreciate every veggie I buy, knowing someone had to bend to get it. If the illegals weren't there to pick veggies, would that encourage citizens to do it? If citizens won't do it, even if the wage goes higher, then we all have no veggies. I don't know the answer to this picking problem. Perhaps it is God's fault for not making backs better in their construction.