New US regulations will lower wages for H-2A farmworkers

From the article:

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.

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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.

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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.

This seems like a complicated way to say that they get minimum wage now?

The Department of Labor estimates the new interim final rule will transfer $2.46 billion from H-2A workers to H-2A employers annually.

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United Farm Workers — the nation’s largest farmworker union — condemned the decision in a news release Monday.

Here is Sarah Taber’s commentary.

The surge in hiring H2A workers isn't just about "getting away from undocumented labor." It's also about replacing US workers.

Since its inception, H2A has had a high minimum wage- precisely to prevent competition with US workers.

And that's what Trump just got rid of.

"That's not a big deal, how many people actually work on farms anyway?"

About 2 million! Just hired hands, not including people who live on & own family farms!

The US also has about 2 million waiters/waitresses and about 2 million truck drivers.