Farmworker wages rose 3.2% nationally this year from 2023, according to an American Farm Bureau Foundation analysis of USDA’s Farm Labor Survey, which is used to set H-2A minimum wage rates.
In 2024, the average combined field and livestock worker wage rate nationally is $18.12 and hour. However, H-2A employers pay the regional wages established by the FLS. Those increased an average of 4.5%, “but this reflects wide ranges of change across the country,” AFBF Associate Economist Samantha Ayoub wrote in a report.
The biggest regional increase came in Florida, one of the biggest users of H-2A workers, where wages rose 9.9% to $16.08 an hour. In the states of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, wages rose 9.5% $16.08/hour. The lowest regional wage was for the Delta states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where the rate rose 2.1% in 2024 to $14.83/hour.
Wages in the eastern Corn Belt states of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio rose 7.6% to $19.57.
“Eleven of the 15 regions will see an increase in wages larger than the national growth rate,” AFBF said. It noted that “Florida began raising its state minimum wage $1 per hour each year in 2020 until it reaches $15 per hour in 2026, which may be contributing to spikes in farm wages.”
The FLS, released Wednesday, came out the same day the National Council of Agricultural Employers filed a writ of mandamus in federal court seeking to compel the Labor Department to respond to a petition challenging the way it formulates the adverse effect wage rates (AEWR) for H-2A workers.
AFBF’s report noted that the Labor Department’s Farmworker Protection Rule issued in April that, among other things, removed the “traditional 14-day implementation period for employers to begin paying the new AEWR.”
A judge issued an injunction in August temporarily halting implementation of the rule in the 17 states that had sued. DOL did not suspend the rule in those states or others, electing instead to impose separate requirements on employers depending on their location.
“While 48% of H-2A workers are employed in the states who filed for an injunction, for most states, this is the first year that employers will be required to immediately begin paying the new AEWR upon certification in December,” Ayoub wrote.
“Navigating the divided DOL guidelines and having to immediately alter business operations to accommodate new wages has added to the administrative burdens of employing H-2A workers,’ she said.
The 17 states that sued are Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The USDA labor survey found that 797,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators during the week of Oct. 6-12, up 3% from the October 2023 reference week. "Workers hired directly by farm operators numbered 808,000 during the week of July 7-13, 2024, up 3 percent from the July 2023 reference week," the FLS said.
The population of farmworkers nationwide is estimated at 2.4 million farmworkers in the U.S.
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