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R47944 — Measuring Wages in the Agricultural Sector for the H-2A Visa Program

Reports · published 2024-03-05 · v5 · Active · crsreports.congress.gov ↗

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Authors
Elizabeth Weber Handwerker
Report id
R47944
Summary

The H-2A visa program allows for the temporary admission of foreign workers to the United States to perform agricultural labor or services of a seasonal or temporary nature. Before foreign workers can be issued H-2A visas, federal law requires that their prospective employers receive certification from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that such employment of foreign workers will not adversely affect the wages of similar workers in the United States. The number of employer requests for H-2A visas to employ foreign agricultural workers has been increasing in recent years while the wages that agricultural employers are required to pay these temporary foreign workers have also been increasing. This has meant higher labor costs for agricultural producers, which has attracted congressional attention. Rising food prices have also meant particular congressional concern about rising costs for agricultural producers. Current regulations require that employers of workers on H-2A visas offer, advertise, and pay workers a wage that is at least the highest of five wage rates. The highest of these rates is usually the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR). This report discusses how data from the Farm Labor Survey (FLS) and the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) are used to calculate the AEWR, the role of the AEWR in labor certification for the H-2A visa program, how the methodology for calculating the AEWR has changed over time, and congressional interest in the AEWR. Some congressional proposals regarding changes in labor certification have involved changing which data are used in calculating the AEWR. This report seeks to assist congressional debate on this issue by providing descriptions of the various available data, and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of each one in measuring agricultural wages. The report describes both the data currently used in labor certification for the H-2A visa program and other sources of wage data in the agricultural sector that are not currently used in labor certification. Since March 2023, the AEWRs for farm managers and for first-line supervisors of agricultural workers have been set at different rates than the AEWRs for most other agricultural occupations in the same geographic areas. However, the data currently used to calculate the AEWR for farm managers and first-line supervisors of agricultural workers come from the OEWS, which is a survey of nonfarm employers. Nonfarm businesses employ few farm managers or first-line supervisors of agricultural workers. The President’s budget request for FY2024 includes $1,137,000 to add data collection from farm employers to the OEWS. This report compares the agricultural wage data currently used in calculating the AEWR with the wage data available from the Agricultural Resources Management Survey (ARMS), the Census of Agriculture (COA), the American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), the National Economic Accounts, and the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS). All of these sources of agricultural wage data show that wages in the agricultural sector have been increasing more rapidly than private-sector wages and salaries in the United States as a whole, as measured by the Employment Cost Index (ECI).

Bills cited (10)

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