Senate considering bill to freeze H-2A minimum wage

The U.S. Senate is considering bipartisan legislation that could bring financial relief to farms that hire foreign workers on temporary visas.

The Farm Operations Support Act, introduced this month by Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., would freeze the minimum wage paid to farmworkers on H-2A visas for one year, reverting to the rate that was in effect on Dec. 1, 2022, and keeping it until Dec. 31, 2023.

The wage rate for foreign H-2A workers, called the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, or AEWR, is higher than the standard minimum wage paid to domestic workers. The AEWR, which varies by state, was designed to keep foreign workers from displacing domestic ones. But it places an economic burden on agricultural employers who have increasingly relied on H-2A workers in recent years amid labor shortages.

Last year, there were roughly 35,000 H-2A workers in California, more than ten times the number of farmworkers in the state on temporary visas a decade ago.

“The 2023 AEWR rule missed the mark by such a wide margin that farmers in some states experienced required wage increases of more than 10% after smaller increases last year,” the American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement. “The AEWR has significantly outpaced increases in the national average wage for most workers in America.”

California’s AEWR rose from $17.51 per hour to $18.65 per hour Jan. 1. The Senate legislation would bump it back to the 2022 rate and freeze it until the end of this year.

“Farmers are committed to paying their employees a fair wage, but the new AEWR rule used flawed data to reach a flawed conclusion,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said. “Requiring farmers to pay their workers far more than the average domestic worker is earning just makes no sense, especially in the face of high supply costs, inflation and a global food shortage.”