Farmworkers earned less than 60 percent of what comparable workers did off the farm last year, says an Economic Policy Institute blog. The wage gap in 2020 was virtually unchanged from 2019, indicating “they were not rewarded adequately” for their labor as essential workers during the pandemic.
“They earned just $14.62 per hour on average in 2020, far less than even some of the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. labor force,” wrote Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the think tank. Foreign workers who worked on farms under the H-2A visa program were paid an average of $13.68 an hour, according to an EPI analysis of USDA and Labor Department data. A comparable group of production and nonsupervisory nonfarm workers were paid an average of $24.67 an hour.
There are an estimated 2 million farmworkers in the U.S.; half are believed to be undocumented immigrants. There were 213,000 H-2A guestworkers in 2020.