LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Employers in the agriculture sector, or other users of the H-2A program in 2024, may be required to pay workers higher wages under the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) after a recent report. 

Temporary nonimmigrant workers under the H-2A visa classification can perform agricultural labor and some other services under the AEWR. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, hourly AEWRs extend to numerous agricultural occupations some including: graders and sorters, agricultural equipment operators, and farmworkers and laborers for crops/nurseries/greenhouses. 

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“While the H-2A program is utilized by farmers and ranchers across the U.S. for a variety of seasonal or temporary farm work, it is most closely associated with the fruit and vegetable sector, often short-handed to specialty crops,” according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. 

The United States Department of Agriculture Farm Labor Report released Wednesday, made some wonder if AEWR rates would rise in the state, increasing the cost for farm labor. 

Currently, Michigan’s AEWR rate is $17.34 per hour, but could increase by nearly 7% to $18.50 an hour if the DOL uses the same calculations for annual rate increases.  If it were to rise, it would make Michigan’s AEWR rate the fourth highest in the nation behind California at $19.75, and several others including Hawaii at $18.74. 

U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) has cosponsored a bill, HR 3308, which would freeze the minimum wage for H-2A workers. 

At a recent roundtable with Michigan specialty crop producers, Congresswoman Slotkin shared that she would work to find out whether the Department of Labor would freeze the AEWR. 

“We have this bill that I am a cosponsor of that calls for a freeze, but it hasn’t come up for a vote,” she said. “It just doesn’t make economic sense. My biggest lesson from this conversation is that wages can go up in industries where profits are going up, but their industry isn’t.”

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Increasing the AEWR wage would have an overall effect on wages for all workers according to Sarah Black, manager of the Great Lakes Ag Labor Services – which helps farmers with administrating H-2A workers. 

“AEWR increases affect all farms in Michigan, not just those who employ H-2A labor, as it artificially inflates the wages in the corresponding areas,” Black said. 

Another increase to the AEWR would place the hourly wage more than $10 higher than the current federal minimum wage, and significantly higher than Michigan’s minimum wage of $10.10.