New data from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows farm worker wages rose by more than 3% year-over-year in 2024.
The data was taken from USDA’s Farm Labor Survey which is used to set H-2A minimum wage rates across the country. The Farm Bureau found that the national wage rate average for both field and livestock workers to be $18.12 an hour.
However, those vary greatly state by state. For example, Florida wages rose nearly 10% to $16.08 an hour while wages in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio rose by more than 7% to $19.57.
High labor costs have been found to make up as much as 38% of the U.S. fresh produce industry’s expenses.
Those costs are only expected to grow come the new year when the adverse effect wage rate is set to increase by 4.5% on average.
California, the country’s largest specialty crop-growing state and the third-largest employer of H-2A workers will see wages rise to $19.97 an hour in 2025.
