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Hired farmworkers make up less than 1 percent of all
U.S. wage and salary workers, but they make a major
contribution to agriculture by providing labor during
critical production periods. Yet, hired farmworkers
continue to be one of the most economically disadvantaged
groups in the United States. Hired farmworkers are employed
in both metro and nonmetro areas. The statistics presented
in this chapter, therefore, refer to farmworkers nationwide
rather than in nonmetro areas only.
The following information is available in this chapter:
Number and Geographical Distribution
Hired farmworkers, who include farm and nursery workers,
livestock workers, farmworker supervisors, and farm
managers, make up 30 percent of all farmworkers (the
other 70 percent are paid/unpaid family members).
Many work on large farms with sales over $500,000 and
over 1,000 acres. The total number of hired farmworkers
in the United States has steadily declined over the
last century,
from roughly 3.4 million to just over 1 million;
as a proportion of total employment, agricultural
employment has declined even more sharply.
According to the Farm Labor Survey (FLS) of the National Agricultural Statistics
Service (NASS), hired farmworkers, including agricultural service workers, decreased
in number from 1,145,000 in 1990 to 1,009,000 in 2006.
According to data from the Current
Population Survey (CPS), roughly 40 percent of all
hired farmworkers live in the Southwest, and 20 percent
live in each of the South and Midwest regions. Almost
half of all hired farmworkers live in just five States:
California, Texas, North Carolina, Washington, and Oregon.
d
Demographic Characteristics
Agricultural work is frequently a means of entering
the U.S. labor market for foreign-born Hispanics. Consequently,
most farmworkers are ethnically Hispanic, male, White,
and married. Compared with all wage and salary workers,
farmworkers are about five years younger on average
and are far more likely to be male and Hispanic.
| Demographic characteristics
of farmworkers and all wage and salary workers |
| Item |
Farmworkers |
All wage and
salary workers |
| Percent male |
80.9 |
52.1 |
| Median age in years |
34 |
40 |
| Percent under age 25 |
15.1 |
6.9 |
| Percent over age 44 |
28.1 |
38.4 |
| Percent married |
52.7 |
55.7 |
| Percent White (race) |
91.7 |
81.6 |
| Percent Hispanic (ethnicity) |
43.0 |
13.7 |
| Percent foreign-born |
42.2 |
16.4 |
| Percent with U.S. citizenship |
62.2 |
90.8 |
| Percent with less than 9th grade education |
30.0 |
3.5 |
| Percent with some college education |
20.7 |
58.3 |
| Source: USDA-ERS using data from
the U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 Current Population Survey
Earnings File. |
Data from the CPS also indicate that almost 40 percent
of all farmworkers are foreign-born and lack U.S. citizenship,
proportions that are substantially higher than for all
wage and salary workers. The CPS data do not indicate
how many of those without citizenship possess legal work
status. Data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey
(NAWS) suggest that half of all hired farmworkers in
crops are unauthorized. The high proportion of foreign-born
workers and the low-skill requirements of much non-managerial
farm labor help explain why education levels of farmworkers
are significantly lower than those of all wage and salary
workers. Most foreign-born workers come from rural communities
in Latin America, principally Mexico, where education
attainment levels are considerably lower than in urban
areas.
Employment Characteristics
The unemployment rate for hired farmworkers was among
the highest for all major occupations
in 2006 despite the fact that 82 percent of hired farmworkers
worked full-time, almost the same as all wage and salary
workers. High unemployment is attributed to the seasonality
of farm work. While hired farmworkers are employed for
roughly the same number of hours per week throughout
the year, total employment levels for hired farmworkers
vary significantly depending on the time of year. For
example, National Agricultural Statistics Service data
in 2006 indicate that
1,195,000
hired farmworkers were
employed in mid-July, compared with
796,000
in mid-January.
In 2006, hired farmworkers were paid an average
of $9.87 per hour. This average includes
wages of managers and supervisors, who represent 28
percent of all hired farmworkers. The median wage for
nonsupervisory hired farm labor, at $6.75 per hour, was
significantly less and among the lowest wages paid
for a typical unskilled occupation.
d
Use of Social
Services
This section and the next section on migrating farmworkers
rely on data from the
U.S. Department of Labor's National Agricultural Workers Study (NAWS). NAWS
is the only survey that identifies noncitizens as authorized
or unauthorized, and the only survey
that identifies hired farmworkers as migrant or settled.
However, NAWS is limited to hired crop farmworkers and
excludes hired livestock farmworkers.
Hired crop farmworkers use some
selected 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 by hired farmworkers occurs partly because
of their lower earnings. Frequent periods of unemployment
also increase their eligibility for these safety-net
programs. Unauthorized immigrants are eligible for WIC,
and citizen children of unauthorized immigrants are eligible
for Food Stamps and Medicaid. Among crop farmworkers,
authorized workers use more social services than unauthorized
workers. Among authorized crop farmworkers, citizens—whose
poverty rates are a third those of non-citizens—typically
have lower participation levels in social service programs
than non-citizens.
Migrating Farmworkers
Hired farmworkers include a sizable minority of mobile
or migrant workers who work primarily in crops rather
than livestock. Shuttler migrants travel between a single
work location and their U.S. or foreign homes. Follow-the-crop
migrants travel to multiple work locations according
to agricultural season requirements. While the latter
group embodies the popular conception of hired farmworkers,
it currently comprises less than 10 percent of the crop
farmworker workforce. Historically, increasing migration
into the U.S., particularly by unauthorized workers,
increased the proportion of migrant farmworkers. Since
the mid-1990s, however, greater border enforcement and
increasing use of year-round production techniques have
increased the proportion of settled farmworkers.
 d
Migrating hired farmworkers exhibit different demographic
and employment profiles from settled farmworkers: they
are younger, more likely to be male, and more often Hispanic.
Migrant farmworkers earned $7.52 per hour compared with
$8.53 per hour for settled farmworkers in 2006. Earnings
are lower in part because migrant farmworkers have less
education, less U.S. experience, and lower English facility.
They also have a higher likelihood of being unauthorized
and a higher likelihood of working for labor contractors.
Low wages of migrant farmworkers are compounded by much
lower rates of health insurance coverage and an annual
work schedule that includes half as many workweeks as settled
farmworkers.
Links to Key Data Sources
Note that figures for these and other characteristics
differ somewhat depending on the set of workers being
analyzed and the data sources used. Livestock farmworkers,
for example, have more stability and less seasonal employment,
and consequently, their traits more resemble those of
all wage and salary workers than of field crop farmworkers.
Similarly, data from the Current Population Survey reflect
a more established and native-born population than data
collected from the National Agricultural Workers Survey.
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