National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS)
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy (OASP), U.S. Department of Labor, advises the Secretary of Labor and coordinates and provides leadership to the Department’s activities in economic policy issues. Activities are both short-term and long-term and include economic research and regulatory policies and procedures bearing on the welfare of all U.S. workers. The U.S. Department of Labor is the only national information source on the demographics and working and living conditions of U.S. farm workers.
The U.S. Department of Labor began surveying farm workers in 1988 and has collected information from more than 25,000 workers. Each year, NAWS interviews approximately 2,500 randomly selected farm workers across the United States. The sampling procedure accounts for seasonal and regional fluctuations in the level of agricultural work activity. Each survey year includes a fall cycle, a winter cycle, and a spring/summer cycle of interviews. The number of interviews conducted during a cycle is proportionate to the amount of agricultural activity at that time of year.
NAWS uses area sampling of sites to obtain a nationally representative group of farm workers while containing travel costs of survey staff. A sample of 288 counties in 25 States is selected to represent 12 distinct agricultural regions. No fewer than four counties were chosen from each region. Multistage sampling is used to choose respondents in each cycle. The likelihood of a given site being selected varies with the size of its agricultural payroll. Agricultural employers within each of the selected counties are chosen randomly from public agency records, including unemployment insurance files and Agricultural Commissioners’ pesticide registrations. These sources of employer names are supplemented from lists maintained by such agencies as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Agricultural Soil and Conservation Service, and State Departments of Industrial Relations.
NAWS locates and samples workers at their work sites, avoiding the well-publicized undercount of this difficult-to-find population. During the initial contact, arrangements are made to interview the respondent at home or at another convenient location. The interviewed farm workers reveal detailed information about their basic demographics, legal status, education, family size and household composition, wages and working conditions in agricultural jobs, and participation in the nonagricultural U.S. labor force. This information permits in-depth research on current farm workers and for the tracing of changes occurring since 1988.
For further information, contact
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Ave., NW
Suite S–2312
Washington, DC 20210
Telephone: 202–693–5959
www.dol.gov/asp/programs/agworker/naws.htm
