What are the wage rates in the H-2A agricultural guestworker program?
Under Department of Labor regulations before the Bush Administration changes, employers in the H-2A program had to pay the highest of three wages: • the federal or state minimum wage (e.g., the Federal rate is $5.15 per hour, some state minimum wages are higher, California’s is $6.75 per hour, and some are lower, Kansas’s is $2.65 per hour); • the “prevailing wage,” as determined by the Department of Labor using a special H-2A methodology to conduct wage surveys for each particular task in very local areas. It is expressed in the prevailing method of payment (for example, a piece rate, or an hourly wage rate). The prevailing wage is ordinarily the local median wage for that particular job. • the H-2A “adverse effect wage rate” or “AEWR.” The AEWR is the regional weighted average hourly wage rate for field and livestock workers combined, as measured by the Department of Agriculture’s annual Farm Labor Survey of non-supervisory farm and ranch workers. Most regions include more than one s
