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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, December 19, 2024
The Adverse Effect Wage Rate that farmers are required to pay H-2A workers is rising by an average of 4.47% nationally to $17.74 per hour, according to list of 2025 wage rates published in a Federal Register notice Monday.
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.
The level of farmworker wages continues to vex the ag industry and farmworker representatives, who say the way they are calculated results in wages being either too low or too high.
Some 16 Republican senators are calling on congressional leaders to move legislation that would freeze the adverse effect wage rate for H-2A workers at 2023 levels.
A court has rejected a challenge by agricultural employers to the Labor Department’s 2022 H-2A rule, finding that the department properly followed notice-and-comment procedures.
As a result of the H-2A Department of Labor’s rising wage floor, U.S. fruit and vegetable growers find themselves again appealing for a bipartisan solution to the agricultural workforce shortage and temporary fix for the wage rate hikes.
The Adverse Effect Wage Rate that farmers are required to pay H-2A workers is rising by an average of 4.5% nationally to $14.62 per hour this year, with some western and Plains states seeing significantly higher increases.
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