MIGRANT WORKERS

BRIEF BACKGROUND

• Move from place to place to get work
• Became popular in 1924
• Called okies 20% migrant workers from Oklahoma
• Annual arrival rate in 1931 almost 500,000

FINANCIALS

• Cotton strike $0.60 per 100 pounds of cotton
• Settled at $0.75 per 100 pounds of cotton
• Economic prosperity
• Low 79.2%, medium 15.2% high 5.6%
• 15-20cents an hour, 12 hour days

SOCIAL STANDING

• Mostly treated like trash
• Considered the lowest of the low
• Even farmers had discriminatory attitude
• Known as the invisible population

LIVING CONDITIONS

• Treated harshly
• Worked long hours
• Paid extremely low wages
• Suffered many health conditions
• Lived in settlements established on farm packed tightly together
• Comparable to slaves though not nearly as bad

EFFECTS OF THE DEPRESSION

• Mexicans viewed as competition
• Legal and illegal workers were deported
• Farmers forced off land and had to work for starvation wages
• Machinary also led to lack of workers
• Migrant worker crisis ended with WW2 and the Bracero program

DUST BOWL IMPACT

• Deportation due to job and food shortage
• Farmers lost their homes and land, forced to join migrant workforce

NEW DEAL PROGRAMS

• Protected workers
• (Aaa) agriculture adjudtment admin.
• (Fsa) farm security admin.
• (Rea) rural electrification admin.

ROUTE TRAVELED

MISC. STATISTICS

• 75% mexican
• 80% male majority under 31
• 60% lived away from family
• Over 3 million migrant workers in 1930