A bottle of St. Michael Valley wine sells for 10. St. Michael can produce 20 bottles of wine per day if it employs 1 worker and 30 bottles of wine per day if it employs 2 workers. If the wage is 150, how many workers should the vineyard hire? If the wage is 80, how many workers should the vineyard hire?
a) 1 worker for 150, 2 workers for 80
b) 1 worker for 80, 2 workers for 150
c) 2 workers for 150, 1 worker for 80
d) 2 workers for 80, 1 worker for 150

The vineyard should hire 1 worker when the wage is 150 and 2 workers when the wage is 80, as this ensures the real wage in terms of wine is equivalent to the production capacity of the workers.The correct answer will be option a: 1 worker for 150, 2 workers for 80.

Explanation:

The question is about determining how many workers the St. Michael Valley vineyard should hire based on the wage cost and productivity in wine production. To figure this out, one must calculate the real wage in terms of how much wine a worker can buy with their daily wage, then compare it to the productivity of the workers.

If the wage is 150, one would calculate the real wage by dividing 150 by the price of a bottle of wine, which is 10. This gives us 15 bottles of wine a day. If only one worker is employed, they can make exactly this amount of wine so hiring one worker is sufficient. However, if two workers are hired, the vineyard would produce more wine than what corresponds to their combined wages in terms of wine, which is not efficient.

Conversely, when the wage is 80, each worker could buy 8 bottles of wine with a day's wage. But one worker can only produce 20 bottles a day. By hiring a second worker, the vineyard would be able to produce 30 bottles, getting closer to the combined real wage of the two workers which would be 16 bottles. In this case, it's more efficient to hire two workers.

Therefore, the vineyard should hire 1 worker for 150, and 2 workers for 80. Accordingly, the correct answer will be option a: 1 worker for 150, 2 workers for 80.