Some growers who use the H-2A guest worker program will pay wage rates as much as 15% higher than last year.
The increase comes at at time when industry leaders have been seeking grower relief from high farm wage rates.
Through Dec. 20, the lame duck session of Congress failed to act on proposed legislation to reform aspects of the H-2A progam.
“Congress missed a huge opportunity and did not do their part to improve production and increase the legal supply of labor,” Robert Guenther, chief public policy officer for the International Fresh Produce Association, said in a recent news release.
“Because of this inaction, consumers will continue to see record prices at the grocery store, producers will continue to face unaffordable, unpredictable input costs from out-of-control wage hikes, and we will continue down the path to being a nation that is increasingly food insecure,” he added.
Elevated wage rates
In mid-December, the Department of Labor has published new adverse effect wage rates for each state. The simple average adverse effect wage rate for fiscal year 2023 is $16.13 per hour, according to the Department of Labor notice.
The wage rates, applicable Jan. 2, 2023, are the minimum wage rates the Department of Labor has determined must be offered and paid by employers to H-2A workers and workers in corresponding employment to help ensure the department “meets its statutory obligation to certify that the employment of H-2A foreign workers will not have an adverse effect on the wages of agricultural workers in the U.S. similarly employed,” according to the notice.
According to a post by Stephen Bronars, economist with Edgeworth Economics, the 2023 adverse effect wage rates are about 9.4% higher, on average, than prevailing wages for H-2A workers in 2022.
Bronars said in his online post that adverse effect wage rates vary by region and have increased rapidly for some states. In Florida, the AEWR increased by almost 15.5%, and in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina the AEWR increased by just over 14%, he said.
The 2023 adverse effect wage rates for all agricultural employment (except for the herding or production of livestock on the range) for which temporary H-2A certification is being sought is equal to the annual weighted average hourly wage rate for field and livestock workers (combined) in the state or region as published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the Nov. 23, 2022, Farm Labor Report, reported by The Packer here.
With the percentage change compared with fiscal year 2022, the 2023 AEWRs to be paid hourly for agricultural work performed by H-2A and workers in corresponding employment in selected states are:
- Alabama: $13.67, up 14%
- Arizona: $15.62, up 6%
- California: $18.65, up 7%
- Florida: $14.33, up 15%
- Georgia: $13.67, up 14%
- Idaho: $15.68, up 7%
- Michigan: $17.34, up 13%
- New Jersey: $16.55, up 6%
- New York: $16.95, up 8%
- North Carolina: $14.91, up 5%
- Texas: $14.87, up 7%
- Washington: $17.97, up 3%
