Farmers who intend to use H-2A workers in 2024 will have to offer pay raises of up to 7%, according to an American Farm Bureau Federation analysis of the USDA farm labor report on which the wage rates are based.
In 2024, the adverse effect wage rate, or AEWR, for H-2A workers will range from a low of $14.53 per hour for workers in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and $14.68 per hour in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, to $19.25 in Oregon and Washington and $19.75 in California, AFBF says.
Farmers in 11 states will have to pay between $18 and $19 per hour: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Hawaii, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Hawaii.
The government sets the AEWRs based on USDA’s region-by-region survey of farmworker pay released in November.
“With labor costs accounting for up to 38.5% of total production expenses in the fruit and tree nuts sector and 28.5% in the vegetable and melons sector … this increase is no small part of the budget,” the AFBF analysis noted.
A few states will see relatively modest increases: The rates will increase just 1.4% in Iowa and Missouri, about 2% in Colorado, Nevada and Utah, and 3% in Florida. But farmers in most of the South, Midwest, Plains and West Coast will have to pay H-2A workers 6% or 7% more than this year.
The analysis notes that the wage increases could come on top of a series of changes the Biden administration is implementing or proposing to the H-2A program that will also increase farm labor costs.
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