Trump Administration Sets Stage for H-2A Farmworker Wage Reforms

The Trump administration is making another run at reforming the way H-2A minimum wage rates for farmworkers are set in a manner that could provide some relief to farmers during a time of continued uncertainty about workers who are in the country illegally.  A big question is whether the administration will follow the strategy they tried to implement as President Trump was leaving office in 2020 or come up with a new method of setting the adverse effect wage rates that farmers must pay H-2A workers.

Farm groups contend the wage levels in the USDA survey led to unsustainable increases in labor costs when growers employ H-2A workers, and the Labor Department isn’t required by law to base adverse effect wage rates on the survey. However, the law does require the Labor Department to ensure H-2A workers a farmer wants to hire “will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.”

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