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Summary

The connection between farm labor and immigration policies has re-emerged as an issue in the Congress and is under discussion by the Bush and Fox Administrations. Questions have arisen about whether enough workers are available domestically to meet the labor requirements of crop growers and how, if at all, the Congress should change immigration policy, which has long been linked with the seasonal needs of crop producers for direct-hire and contract farmworkers. Slightly more than half of today's farmworkers are not legally eligible to hold U.S. jobs. Growers are concerned that if certain federal activities are effective, they could lose a considerable portion of their labor force and hence of their livelihood. These federal actions include increased border enforcement efforts, work eligibility verification pilot programs and audits of employees' work authorization documents to determine their authenticity. In addition, the Social Security Administration has more often been sending letters that notify employers of mismatches between their employees' names/social security numbers and those in SSA's database in order to properly credit earnings to employee records. Growers contend that the sizeable presence of illegal aliens implies a shortage of legal farmworkers. Their advocacy groups argue that growers would rather not employ unauthorized workers because doing so puts them at risk of incurring penalties. Farmworker advocates counter that crop producers prefer illegal to legal employees because the former are in a weaker bargaining position with regard to wages and working conditions. If the supply of illegal workers were curtailed, it is claimed, growers could adjust to a smaller legal workforce by introducing laborefficient technologies and management practices, and by raising wages, which, in turn, would entice more legal workers to become farmworkers. Grower advocates respond that further mechanization would be difficult for some crops and that substantially higher wages would make the U.S. industry uncompetitive in the world marketplace without expanding the legal farm labor force. These remain untested arguments, as perishable crop growers have rarely, if ever, operated without illegal aliens in their workforces. At the present time, trends in the farm labor market generally do not suggest the existence of a nationwide shortage of domestically available farmworkers, in part because the government's databases cover legal and illegal employment. (This finding does not preclude the possibility of spot labor shortages, however.) Hired and contract farm employment generally has declined, in contrast to total U.S. employment, since 1990. The length of time hired workers are employed on farms has shown little change or decreased over the years, depending on the measure examined. The unemployment rate of hired farmworkers has varied little and remains much higher than the overall average. Underemployment among farmworkers remains substantial. And, although two data series show different levels and trends in the wages of field workers, the data do concur that these employees earn about 50 cents for every dollar paid to other private-sector employees.

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