Minimum pay rates for most agricultural guest workers will remain at this year’s levels through 2022 under a regulation announced by the Labor Department on Tuesday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the regulation demonstrated “President Trump’s commitment to America’s farmers by delivering lower costs when they need it the most.”
The Labor Department draws on a variety of sources, such as minimum wage laws, union contracts and local labor surveys, when it sets minimum pay rates, known as adverse effect wage rates (AEWRs), for the 250,000 or so H-2A guest workers. The goal is to prevent H2A wages from undermining pay for American workers.
Agricultural employers say H-2A wages have risen rapidly in recent years at the same time the farm labor supply tightened. Labor advocates have accused the USDA of trying to suppress wages through its sudden suspension of the semi-annual Farm Labor Survey, which has figured in the Labor Department calculations of AEWRs. In many regions, there is no local gauge of pay rates, they say, so the AEWR will be set on the much-lower state minimum wage. A federal judge ruled last week that USDA should carry out the survey.
Assistant Labor Secretary John Pallasch said the department would publish a final rule that, beginning in 2023, adjusts the AEWR for most field and livestock workers by the percentage change in the employment cost index for wages and salaries for the preceding 12 months. The index is maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the interim, the AEWRs will remain at current levels.
For supervisory or higher-skilled agricultural jobs, the AEWR will be based in the future on the BLS’s annual occupational employment survey.
“This final rule provides greater consistency and predictability in the H-2A nonimmigrant visa program,” said Pallasch. Perdue said it “will ensure greater stability for farmers and help them make long-term business decisions rather than facing uncertainty year after year.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation said the Labor Department decision to hold pay rates are current levels through 2022 “provides stability during the uncertainty created by the pandemic and trade imbalances. While this decision does not solve all of the wage issues, it is a step in the right direction. We look forward to continuing our work on meaningful agricultural labor reform through the regulatory or legislative processes.”