Hired Farmworkers a Major
Input For Some U.S. Farm Sectors
With more than half of
hired farmworkers lacking legal authorization to
work in the U.S., legislative reforms of immigration
policies could affect some parts of the agricultural
sector.
William
Kandel
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As
the total U.S. agricultural labor force
has declined over the past century,
hired farmworkers have become a larger
proportion of all farmworkers and are
especially important in the production
of fruit, tree nuts, vegetables, and
horticultural crops. |
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Hired
farmworkers earn lower incomes than
most other wage and salary workers and
face demanding working conditions.
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Because
an estimated half of hired farmworkers
lack the legal status to work in the
U.S., legislative reforms of immigration
policies could have an impact on the
sectors employing these workers. |
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| For
more information . . . |
| Farm
Labor chapter of the ERS Briefing Room on
Rural Labor and Education
|
| You
may also be interested in . . . |
| “Meat
Processing Firms Attract Hispanic Workers
to Rural America,” by William Kandel,
in Amber Waves, Vol. 4, Issue 3,
June 2006.
Rural
Hispanics at a Glance, William Kandel
(ed.), EIB-8, USDA, Economic Research Service,
December 2005.
New
Patterns of Hispanic Settlement in Rural America,
by William Kandel and John Cromartie, RDRR-99,
USDA, Economic Research Service, May 2004.
|
Hired farmworkers make up a third
of the total U.S. agricultural labor force but are
a much higher share of workers in the production
of labor-intensive crops, such as fruit, tree nuts,
vegetable, and horticultural crops. The hired farmworker-labor
market is unique because it includes a relatively
low-paid, heavily foreign-born, and frequently migrating
population, an estimated half of whom lack the legal
authorization to work in the U.S.
Although agriculture employs less
than 2 percent of the U.S. labor force, hired farmworkers
are receiving greater attention because of two pronounced
trends. First, changing agricultural production
methods that permit year-round employment and increasing
immigrant employment have contributed to a greater
presence of immigrants in some rural counties. Second,
public concern over U.S. immigration policy has
given the mostly Hispanic immigrant hired farmworkers
increased visibility. While the overwhelming majority
of U.S. farm operations are too small to need hired
farmworkers, larger farms and those that require
hired help have an interest in evolving U.S. immigration
policies.
Reliance on Hired Farmworkers
Varies Considerably
The geographic distribution of
the hired farm labor force is determined by the
total quantity of agricultural production and the
kind of crops grown in an area. Certain crops are
more labor intensive. One way to put this in context
is to compare labor expenses to cash receipts. For
the U.S., the total farm labor expense in 2006 was
$24.4 billion—amounting to 10.2 percent of
total agricultural commodity cash receipts. But,
in California, which has the greatest cash receipts
of all States and produces many labor-intensive
crops (such as dairy, grapes, and greenhouse and
nursery), total farm labor expense amounted to 22.3
percent of the total value of agricultural cash
receipts for 2006. In contrast, in Iowa, farm labor
expense totaled 2.5 percent of cash receipts. Iowa
has the third highest total cash receipts but grows
primarily non-labor-intensive agricultural commodities
(such as corn, hogs, and soybeans). Six States—California,
Florida, Washington, Texas, Oregon, and North Carolina—account
for about half of the Nation’s expenditure
on hired labor.
Hired farmworkers represent an
increasing proportion within an agricultural workforce
that has been declining consistently for the past
century (see box, “Data Sources
on Hired Farmworkers”). Extraordinary
increases in agricultural labor productivity due
to technological innovation reduced farm employment
from almost 10 million in 1950 to just over 3 million
by 2006. At the same time, agricultural output increased
by more than 150 percent. Over time, agricultural
production has concentrated on fewer and larger
farms.
From 1950 to 2001, according to
the Farm Labor Survey (FLS), the average number
of family farmworkers declined, while the average
number of hired farmworkers per farm increased.
As a consequence, the ratio of hired to total farmworkers
has increased from roughly 1 in 4 in 1950 to 1 in
3 in 2001. Moreover, because the FLS is a cross-section
estimate at various points during the year and hired
farmworkers are often seasonal workers, notwithstanding
the recent increase in year-round workers, the total
number of hired farmworkers over the course of a
year is likely to be significantly higher than the
FLS estimates.
The trend toward a greater reliance
on hired labor, relative to farm family labor, is
even more evident for the larger farms that account
for most production. Members of family farm households
have increasingly engaged in employment activities
off the farm during the last 50 years. But, part
of the explanation underlying the shifts in labor
use is due to the concentration of production on
larger farms, which require nonfamily farmworkers
since family workers alone cannot meet the labor
requirements of these large operations.
Labor is the agricultural sector’s
third largest production expense (considering all
cash and noncash expenses, such as capital depreciation),
trailing only feed and capital depreciation. For
2008, wages paid to hired farmworkers are forecast
to be $27.3 billion. After declining for decades,
labor’s share of U.S. farm expenses began
increasing in the mid-1980s. Consequently, among
labor-intensive agricultural sectors, factors affecting
the farm labor supply—such as increases in
the minimum wage, changes in labor demand from other
industries employing low-skilled workers, or new
immigration policies—can alter farm profitability
for growers who rely heavily on farm labor. Growers
who specialize in vegetable, fruit, tree nut, or
horticultural production, for whom labor costs total
30-40 percent of cash expenses, are especially sensitive
to fluctuations in the cost and availability of
labor.
While labor tasks for some crops
are automated, some growers contend that the expense
of mechanization to replace labor-intensive tasks
would prevent them from remaining competitive with
foreign producers. Alternative perspectives suggest
that growers could adjust to smaller workforces
by using labor-efficient technologies and management
practices. Both arguments remain untested because
growers have long relied upon an ample labor supply.
What Do We Know About
Hired Farmworkers?
Recent ERS research on hired farmworkers
reveals a higher proportion who are foreign-born,
have limited English language skills, and have less
U.S. working experience than workers in other sectors
of the economy. They are also younger and have significantly
less schooling than all other wage and salary workers
in the U.S. labor force.
These characteristics have consequences
for farmworkers’ employment opportunities.
Low earnings among hired farmworkers are pervasive.
Median weekly earnings of full-time farmworkers
are 59 percent of the average wage and salary worker.
Hired farmworkers earn significantly less than workers
in most other occupations, including some similarly
low-skilled jobs. In addition, Federal minimum wage
laws, which exempted employers of all farmworkers
when passed during the Great Depression, still exempt
growers who employ fewer than seven workers.
Hired farmworkers have less stable
work schedules than other wage and salary workers
and unemployment rates that, on average, are twice
as high. An estimated half of all hired farmworkers
are migrants who work considerable distances from
their homes. Migrant farmworkers are more likely
to be younger, male, and Hispanic than settled hired
farmworkers. Compared with settled hired farmworkers,
migrant farmworkers have even fewer years of schooling
and U.S. work experience, even less knowledge of
English, and, for most, no legal status to work
in the U.S. Migrant farmworkers also earn less than
settled farmworkers. In 2006, migrant crop farmworkers
received $7.52 per hour, compared with $8.53 per
hour for settled crop farmworkers. Beyond monetary
compensation, migrant farmworkers are less likely
than settled farmworkers to have health insurance.
Since many migrant farmworkers travel with their
families, including children, the disadvantages
of low earnings, lower health insurance rates, and
changes in location extend to their families.
| The
demographic profile of hired farmworkers helps
explain their relative disadvantage in the
labor market compared with other wage and
salary workers |
| |
Hired farmworkers |
Other wage
and
salary workers |
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|
| |
Noncitizen |
Citizen |
Noncitizen |
Citizen |
| |
|
| |
Percent |
| Demographic
characteristics |
| Male |
82.7 |
79.9 |
63.6 |
50.7 |
| Hispanic ethnicity |
94.6 |
12.0 |
61.8 |
9.1 |
| Less than ninth grade education |
63.4 |
9.9 |
22.2 |
1.4 |
| Mexican-born |
90.3 |
5.3 |
41.2 |
1.2 |
| Pre-1986 U.S. entry (foreign-born) |
17.5 |
72.5 |
15.7 |
60.4 |
| Only Spanish spoken in household |
64.0 |
4.1 |
30.7 |
1.3 |
| Married |
62.5 |
46.9 |
60.3 |
55.3 |
| Children under 18 in household |
46.7 |
29.2 |
42.4 |
34.5 |
| Median age (years) |
34 |
34 |
34 |
40 |
| Employment
characteristics |
| Median weekly earnings (dollars) |
340 |
470 |
480 |
700 |
| Median hourly wage (dollars) |
7.50 |
10.00 |
10.00 |
13.00 |
| Employed part-time (percent) |
6.3 |
25.0 |
11.9 |
17.0 |
| Unemployed (percent) |
9.9 |
7.7 |
4.3 |
4.5 |
| Median unempl. duration (months) |
8 |
4 |
7 |
8 |
| Union membership (percent) |
1.7 |
2.2 |
6.3 |
12.6 |
| Number of workers |
284,315 |
472,470 |
12,082,393 |
116,455,584 |
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Source: Computed by USDA,
Economic Research Service using the average
of all 12 months of the 2006 Current Population
Survey Earnings File data. The noncitizen
category includes authorized and unauthorized
workers.
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Data from the U.S. Department of Labor show that
agricultural work consistently ranks among the more
hazardous occupations in the U.S. for the incidence
of fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. Farmworkers
face occupational hazards not generally found in
other industrial settings, such as pesticide exposure
and risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Almost
three-quarters of crop farmworkers possess some
type of health insurance for work-related injuries,
but few workers have it for non-work-related injuries
or illnesses.
U.S. Census Bureau data indicate
that farmworker housing conditions, which historically
have often been substandard, have improved relatively
little in recent years. Substandard farmworker housing
conditions have been well documented by a variety
of sources, including the U.S. Government Accountability
Office at the national level, as well as a variety
of small area studies by nonprofit housing organizations
and State university researchers.
Hired farmworkers use some selected
Federal assistance programs for themselves and their
family members at higher rates than other wage and
salary employees. These include food stamps, WIC
(Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children), Medicaid, and free school
lunches. Higher use of such social services is likely
due in part to lower earnings among hired farmworkers.
Unauthorized immigrants are eligible for WIC, and
citizen children of unauthorized immigrants are
eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. Among hired
farmworkers, authorized workers use more social
services than unauthorized workers. Among authorized
crop farmworkers, citizens—whose poverty rates
are a third of those of noncitizens—typically
have lower participation levels in social service
programs than noncitizens.
Differing Perspectives
on Unauthorized Farmworkers
According to the U.S. Department
of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Study
(NAWS), roughly half of crop farmworkers are not
authorized to work in the United States. Because
the number of unauthorized low-skill immigrants
in the U.S. far exceeds immigration quotas, the
immigrants’ opportunities to obtain legal
status depend almost entirely on changes in U.S.
immigration policy. U.S. farm operators likewise
rely on immigration policy for guidance on employment
decisions. Immigrants who arrived after 1990 were
ineligible to qualify for legal status under the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
This legislation granted legal status to those who
have lived in the U.S. since 1982 or who could prove
they engaged in agricultural employment between
1985 and 1986. Because no major legislation has
offered legal status to unauthorized immigrants
since IRCA, immigrants arriving after 1990 are far
more likely to be unauthorized.
Unauthorized workers appear in
greater proportions in agriculture than in other
industries. Current and widely cited estimates by
the Pew Hispanic Center place the entire unauthorized
workforce at 7 million workers in 2006. Of these,
an estimated 500,000 are employed as hired farmworkers
at any given point in time. But, because different
workers often work at the same location at different
times of the year, the estimated total number of
unauthorized workers employed in agriculture throughout
a year is likely to be greater.
According to the NAWS data, since
1989, a substantial portion of crop farmworkers
have consistently reported they expected to remain
in farmwork for the for seeable future. However,
several studies based on the experience with IRCA
suggest that if unauthorized workers were granted
legal status, they would be less likely to take
seasonal agricultural production jobs and agricultural
wages would increase significantly. Hence, those
employing seasonal workers would face the greatest
financial challenges resulting from labor market
constriction due to immigration reform. Farm operators
are likely to adjust over time by acquiring additional
capital equipment, switching commodities, or possibly
ceasing agricultural production.
Opponents of additional immigration
restrictions believe that imposing them would jeopardize
the supply of labor available to farmers during
critical planting and harvest seasons. They contend
that if restrictive immigration policies were to
occur, it could lead to reduced profits for some
farms and threaten the viability of agricultural
subsectors that remain heavily dependent on farm
labor, especially fruit, tree nuts, vegetables,
and horticulture. Others contend that little evidence
supports the existence of farm labor shortages.
To support their view, the latter group points to
relatively slight increases in recent hired farmworker
wages, greater production of labor-intensive fruit
and vegetables, the small proportion of food products’
final cost attributed to labor, and increasing possibilities
for agricultural mechanization. Because agriculture
has not had to deal with a critical shortage of
labor in the recent past, it is difficult to reconcile
these two perspectives.
Agricultural Labor and
Immigration Policies Changing
The last major national legislation
passed that affected agricultural workers was the
IRCA, which included a Special Agricultural Workers
(SAW) legalization program for persons able to demonstrate
agricultural employment prior to 1985-86. Since
that time, States and municipalities across the
Nation have implemented policies to address growing
numbers of unauthorized workers, whether they work
on farms or elsewhere. In over 20 States, legislatures
have passed laws that penalize employers who knowingly
hire unauthorized workers. At least 100 municipalities
around the Nation have proposed or enacted ordinances
that penalize businesses for hiring and landlords
for renting to unauthorized workers.
At the national level, the Social
Security Administration (SSA) attempted to contact
all employers regarding employees whose Social Security
numbers and personal identification information,
as submitted by employers, did not match SSA records.
These efforts have been halted in Federal courts,
however, due to concerns about errors in the SSA
database that might cause legally authorized residents
to be mistakenly fired and/or deported.
As of early 2008, several immigration
law reforms have been proposed. AgJobs, the one
proposed piece of legislation directly related to
agricultural workers, represents a compromise between
growers, farm labor advocates, and Federal legislators.
It would provide many farmworkers with temporary
legal status and the possibility of obtaining permanent
legal residence in the United States.
AgJobs would also restructure
the current H-2A visa program—the Nation’s
only legally sanctioned guestworker program—to
reduce administrative requirements for growers and
to increase legal protections for workers. In 2006,
some 64,000 out of an estimated 1 to 2.5 million
hired farmworkers—less than 3 percent—employed
during the year participated in the H-2A visa program.
According to some growers and worker advocates,
however, problems will occur as the program is implemented.
Growers sometimes claim that administrative requirements
are cumbersome, while advocates contend that the
program invites pervasive worker abuses through
a lack of regulatory enforcement. As part of a program
to address border security and immigration challenges,
President Bush issued a directive to the U.S. Department
of Labor to review the regulations implementing
the H-2A program and institute changes to address
concerns of both growers and farm labor advocates.
A Shift to Year-Round
Workers
Changes in U.S. immigration policy
may have repercussions for the costs of hiring farmworkers
and ripple through farm management decisions. In
addition to the direct effects on farm labor supply,
immigration reforms will indirectly affect several
opposing trends. Increased technological advances,
including mechanization, and changes in labor costs
may affect the agricultural sector’s demand
for hired labor. Yet, a growing consumer appetite
for affordable fresh fruit and vegetables, and,
in particular, more labor-intensive organic produce
increases labor demand.
Although the implications of future
immigration reforms is highly uncertain, data indicate
a growing shift from seasonal to year-round agricultural
employment, corresponding in part to growing domestic
demand for fresh fruit and vegetables year-round.
In turn, migrant workers are increasingly settling
permanently in places where they previously worked
temporarily. As seasonal workers transition into
year-round workers (by doing multiple tasks on the
same farm or holding multiple local jobs throughout
the year), not only might farmers benefit from a
more stable and available workforce, but hired farmworkers
could benefit from improved economic conditions.
| Data
Sources on Hired Farmworkers |
| No single
source provides all the necessary detail for
understanding farm labor supply and demand,
aggregate labor expenses, wages, earnings,
benefits, and characteristics at the national
level. USDA’s Farm Labor Survey (FLS)
remains the most accurate government source
of data on total counts of hired farm and
agricultural service workers, such as contract
labor crews. However, because the FLS is a
cross-sectional survey at various points in
time and many farmworkers are seasonal, it
cannot count all persons who did some hired
farm work during the year. The total number
of hired farmworkers over the course of a
year is considered to be an estimated 2-2.5
times higher than reported in the FLS. Historically,
the FLS provided estimates of the number of
self-employed and unpaid family members working
on farms, but this series was discontinued
in 2001. Other data sources provide population
estimates for different subpopulations of
hired farmworkers and, additionally, provide
statistics on the characteristics and well-being
of those hired farmworker subpopulations.
Current Population Survey
(CPS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau, from
either the monthly Earnings File or the March
Supplement, provide information on earnings,
citizenship, and demographic and labor market
characteristics of those that indicate their
major occupation as farmworker. The CPS data
also permit comparisons between hired farmworkers
and other wage and salary workers.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s
National Agricultural Workers Study (NAWS),
like the CPS, identifies workers as citizens
or noncitizens, but NAWS is the only survey
that identifies noncitizens as authorized
or unauthorized. In addition, NAWS is the
only survey that identifies hired farmworkers
as migrant or settled workers. However, NAWS
is limited to hired crop farmworkers and excludes
hired livestock farmworkers. Unlike surveys
conducted by USDA and the CPS, the NAWS surveys
hired farmworkers at their worksite. Therefore,
the NAWS captures a greater proportion of
the unauthorized farmworker population.
Data from the Census of
Agriculture and the Agricultural Resource
Management Survey, both collected by USDA,
provide total labor costs per farm and information
on farm structure, farm finances, and operator
characteristics. These latter USDA sources
are used to estimate annual farm labor expenses.
The CPS is not used in the development of
USDA’s estimate of farm labor expenses
because of its less complete coverage of the
hired farmworker population. For example,
the CPS has a relatively small sample of farmworkers,
tends to undercount unauthorized farmworkers,
and generally classifies workers according
to their primary occupation, only missing
those who might have farmwork as a secondary
occupation. |
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