The Guardian - US

Yeah, maybe fair. Let's put real numbers to it.

https://vegetables.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Tomato-Budget-2021.pdf?fwd=no

So, for each acre of tomatoes, the total cost is $15,562, of which $7,673 is all labor combined. That's for 42,000 tomatoes. So the total cost of all farm-related labor per tomato is 18 cents out of a 40-50 cent tomato. Profit per tomato is roughly ten cents.

My point was that if they have to pay people a living wage and worker's comp and whatnot, it won't impact the price you pay at the supermarket. Maybe that's not true; I could see it that if the labor doubles because all of a sudden they're paying more than $12/hr (probably relatively accurate even for an under the table worker; maybe they might get $10/hr and literally no other costs to the business, whereas if all of a sudden they were treated like a human, the employer would be paying $25/hr for salary and all HR related expenses roughly speaking), then you'll pay more at the market.

So, I think you're right. I think the tomatoes might cost 60-65 cents each instead of 40-50 if the people growing them got paid more than $10/hr and no health insurance or anything of the like. I think I would be okay with that, but I do think it would be a significant increase maybe, just looking for this one expense breakdown.