Link to article

By Olivia Palmer, Yakima Herald-Republic

The U.S. Department of Labor implemented new regulations last week that will lower wages for many farmworkers in the Northwest.

Over the last decade, farms in the region have increased their use of the H-2A visa program, which allows foreign workers to come to the United States for temporary agricultural jobs and return to their home country when the season ends. As of June 2025, the Department of Homeland Security had approved just over 28,000 H-2A workers for Washington state.

The new nationwide regulations will change the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, which aims to protect domestic workers in similar jobs by setting a minimum wage for H-2A workers. In Washington state, H-2A farmworkers with contracts starting on or after Oct. 2 will make less than they would have before and see housing costs subtracted from their wages.

Under the Adverse Effect Wage Rate rule, H-2A workers must be paid the highest of five wage rates: an Adverse Effect Wage Rate, a prevailing wage rate, a collective bargaining wage rate, the federal minimum wage or the state minimum wage. The system is meant to provide a baseline for wages, but some farmers say it's set an unrealistic standard for labor costs.

Industry leaders see the recent change as a necessary reset to help struggling farms.

Farmworker advocates, on the other hand, say the decision will drastically cut wages and hurt American jobs.

What's changing?

For the last several years, the Adverse Effect Wage Rate has been calculated using data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Labor Survey. That changed last week after the survey was discontinued in August.

Enrique Gastelum, CEO of the Lacey-based Worker and Farmer Labor Association, said one challenge with the old AEWR methodology is that it included things like overtime and benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Labor Survey also didn't include wage data from labor contractors. Gastelum said he believes those factors have contributed to a positive feedback loop where agricultural wages have risen at a rate far beyond that of overall sector wages.

Kate Tynan, senior vice president of the Northwest Horticultural Council said Washington's apple growers are on track to see 97% of what they make from this year's harvest go toward labor costs.

"It doesn't take a mathematician to see that that's just not sustainable, and farmers can't stay in business," she said.

Tynan's concerns aren't unfounded. According to the Census of Agriculture from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, the number of tree fruit farms in Washington fell 15% between 2017 and 2022.

"We're really in a situation where every year we're losing more and more farms because of these unsustainable labor costs," Tynan said. "And while the AEWR is not the only aspect of that, that's certainly, I would say, the largest."

Under the new regulation changes, which took effect Oct. 2, the AEWR will be calculated using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. Tynan said that data differs from the USDA data in a number of ways — for example, it goes down to an individual state level rather than a regional level, excludes overtime and bonuses and includes wages reported by labor contractors. The new methodology also differentiates two wage tiers for field and livestock workers based on skill level.

What are the new wages?

At the beginning of 2025, Washington's AEWR was $19.82. Under the new rules, that number could be more than $3 lower.

The new AEWR is $16.53 for farmworkers in entry-level positions and $19 for farmworkers in skilled positions.

For the first time, employers providing housing to H-2A workers can deduct those expenses off of workers' hourly wage. In Washington, that translates to an additional $2.49 per hour shaved off a worker's pay.

"What this rule is really doing is acknowledging that, 'Look, this is a huge expense. This worker is benefiting from the housing,'" Gastelum said. "'Farmer, you still have to identify and provide safe and healthy licensed housing to the farmworker, but we do recognize that worker's getting a benefit from it, so we're going to let that wage go down to acknowledge that cost.'"

With the new housing deduction factored in, Washington's AEWRs for both entry-level and skilled workers sit below the 2025 state minimum wage of $16.66 per hour.

That doesn't mean farmworkers will be making a sub-minimum wage — per the AEWR rule, growers are still required to pay workers the highest wage class between the AEWR, prevailing wage rate, collective bargaining wage rate, federal minimum wage or the state minimum wage.

The response

Depending on who you ask, the rule changes are expected to save farms $2.46 billion a year, or reduce annual wages for farmworkers by $2.46 billion.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Sunnyside Republican who represents Washington's 4th Congressional District, applauded the decision.

"Farmers and ranchers in Central Washington have been at a disadvantage for years due to high wages in the H-2A program," Newhouse said. "The new AEWR methodology from the Department of Labor will allow employers to pay workers at a competitive rate that is commensurate with their work and experience. This will save employers who utilize the H-2A program billions of dollars per year in costs and deliver much needed relief to producers who have been strained by workforce costs."

Gastelum and Tynan said they see the change as a step in the right direction to help provide much-needed relief to farms. Although the farmworkers will see a lower hourly wage, Gastelum said farms will be in a better financial position to keep operating and providing jobs.

Dillon Honcoop, communications director for the Everson-based nonprofit Save Family Farming, echoed those sentiments.

"Anything that moves in the direction of fairness and providing what's best, both for workers and for farms, is a good thing, and we hope that this does that and provides fair and reasonable wages, both for guest workers, as well as creating a wage structure that protects domestic workers, which is the point of the AEWR," Honcoop said.

But farmworker advocates have a decidedly different take. United Farm Workers — the nation's largest farmworker union — condemned the decision in a news release Monday.

"Farm workers should be paid more, not less," United Farm Workers Foundation Chief Executive Officer Erica Lomeli Corcoran said in the release. "This regulation is a win for corporate greed; a money grab for big agribusiness that transfers millions of dollars through wage cuts and housing deductions from workers to employers. The farm workers who feed us every day deserve so much more and we remain committed to ensuring that their labor and dignity is respected."

The Employment and Training Administration is accepting public comments on the interim final rule until Dec. 1. However, no public input was sought before the rule took effect last week. Areli Arteaga-Sanders, United Farm Workers' Political and Legislative Director, said she believes the process should have taken worker voices into account, adding that the AEWR based on the Farm Labor Survey "more strongly protected American workers from being undercut by cheaper foreign guest workers."

Arteaga-Sanders said that lowering H-2A wages has the potential to put downward pressure on American wages. If growers are allowed to pay H-2A workers less, they're less likely to hire local workers that ask for more.

"The Trump wage cut is a catastrophe for American workers in agriculture who growers intend to replace with cheap and exploitable foreign guest workers. When guest worker wages are lowered, it is American jobs that are lost," United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero said in the release. "With the H2A visa having no cap, and with H2A visa fraud already leading to H2A workers taking up jobs in construction and other industries, the Trump wage cuts opens the gates to potentially unlimited American job losses."

Others think the changes don't go far enough.

The Valicoff Fruit Company is one of the largest fruit producers in the state and relies on the H-2A program. Rob Valicoff, a third-generation fruit grower in the Yakima Valley and an owner of the company, said he believes the program should be modeled more like H-2B, the non-agricultural temporary work visa program. That program doesn't require employers to pay for housing, meals and daily transportation, and its wages are calculated differently and are lower than the Adverse Effect Wage Rate.

Valicoff also said he believes Washington's relatively high minimum wage makes farms less competitive than in other states. He was careful about the wording of the new development.

"It's not 'cheaper,'" he said. "It's more reasonably priced."