About the Report

Download Report

The report presents findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), collected from face-to-face interviews with 2,586 crop workers interviewed between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2018. It is organized into nine chapters, each beginning with a summary of the chapter’s key findings. The report also contains four appendices: Appendix A describes the procedures used to select the sample, Appendix B displays a map of the NAWS migrant streams, Appendix C contains a table of the percentages and means of the principle variables presented in the report, and Appendix D contains tables of demographics and employment characteristic covering seven periods from 1989 to 2018.

Key Takeaways

• About 6 in 10 hired farmworkers were born in Mexico (64%).
• Seventy-seven percent of all farmworkers were Hispanic. Among U.S.-born workers, 30 percent were Hispanic.
• Thirty-two percent of farmworkers self-identified as White, 3 percent as Black or African American, 12 and 65 percent of respondents did not select a category; instead, they described race with an open-ended “other” response.
• Six percent of farmworkers were identified as indigenous.
• Farmworkers in their first year in the United States comprised only 1 percent13 of the hired crop labor force.
• Nearly two-thirds of all farmworkers had work authorization (63%).
• The majority of farmworkers were settled workers (87%). Thirteen percent were migrants.
• Sixty-nine percent of farmworkers were men.
• Farmworkers’ average age was 41, and median age was 40.
• Fifty-seven percent of farmworkers were married, and 50 percent had children.
• Thirty-eight percent of farmworkers were living apart from all nuclear family members at the time of their interview. Eighty-one percent of unaccompanied farmworkers were single workers without children, 12 percent were parents, and 6 percent had a spouse but no children.
• Approximately two-thirds of farmworkers reported that Spanish is their primary language (64%).
• Thirty-six percent of workers reported that they could speak English “well,” and 23 percent said, “not at all.” Thirty-five percent reported that they could read English “well” while 33 percent said, “not at all.”
• The average level of formal education completed by farmworkers was ninth grade.
• Twenty-four percent of workers reported having taken at least one adult education class in the United States.
• Fourteen percent of farmworkers lived in a dwelling owned or administered by their current employer: 11 percent on the farm of the grower for whom they were working and 3 percent off the farm.
• Fifty-eight percent of workers lived in detached, single-family houses.
• One-quarter of farmworkers lived in a dwelling defined as “crowded” (26%).
• Seven in 10 workers lived fewer than 25 miles from their current farm job (74%), and 13 percent lived between 25 and 49 miles from work. Eleven percent of workers lived where they worked.
• Sixty-nine percent of workers drove a car to work, 10 percent rode with a “raitero,” and 4 percent took a labor bus, truck, or van.
• Nearly 9 in 10 farmworkers were employed directly by growers (89%), and 11 percent were employed by farm labor contractors.
• At the time of interview, 41 percent of farmworkers were working in fruit and nut crops, 20 percent in vegetable crops, and 22 percent in horticulture. Thirteen percent were working in field crops, and 4 percent were working in mixed crops.
• At the time of interview, 23 percent of farmworkers were performing pre-harvest tasks, 24 percent were harvesting crops, 19 percent were performing post-harvest activities, and 34 percent were performing technical production tasks.
• Most farm workers reported that their basis for pay was an hourly wage (84%). Workers reported earning an average of $12.32 per hour at their current farm job.
• Fifty-five percent of farmworkers reported that they were covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) if they were to lose their current job, 85 percent said they would receive workers’ compensation if they were injured at work or became ill as a result of their work, and 33 percent reported that their employer offered health insurance for injury or illness suffered while not on the job.
• Eighty-one percent of farmworkers worked for 1 farm employer in the previous 12 months. Crop workers had been employed with their current farm employer for an average of 8 years.
• Farmworkers worked an average of 35 weeks in the previous 12 months.
• Farmworkers worked an average of four days per week for their current employer and an average of 198 days in farm work in the previous 12 months.
• Farmworkers with a full year or more of farm work experience had an average of 19 years of U.S. farm work experience.
• Workers with more years of experience worked more days in the previous 12 months.
• Four-fifths of workers interviewed (80%) expected to continue doing farm work for at least 5 years.
• During the previous year, farmworkers spent an average of 9 weeks living in the United States but not working and 2 weeks abroad.
• Thirty-one percent of farmworkers said they held at least one U.S. non-crop job during the previous year.
• The most common types of non-crop jobs held were non-crop agriculture jobs (41%) and mechanic, repair, or maintenance jobs (25%).
• About 7 in 10 farmworker respondents reported at least 1 period in the 12 months prior to their interview during which they did not work (70%), and these workers averaged 16 weeks without employment. Seventeen percent of these respondents said they received UI during at least one of their periods of unemployment.
• Farmworkers’ mean and median personal incomes the previous year were in the range of $20,000 to $24,999. Eleven percent of workers earned less than $10,000; 23 percent earned $30,000 or more.
• Farmworkers’ mean and median total family incomes the previous year were in the range of $25,000 to $29,999. Twenty-two percent of farmworkers reported total family income of less than $20,000, another 28 percent said their family income was $20,000 to $29,999, and 44 percent had a family income of $30,000 or more.
• About one-fifth of farmworkers had family incomes below the poverty level (21%).
• Seventy-seven percent of farmworkers stated that they owned or were buying at least one asset in the United States. The most common assets listed were a vehicle (reported by 74% of workers) or a type of dwelling, such as a house, mobile home, condominium, or apartment (40% of workers).
• Eighteen percent of farmworkers reported that they or someone in their household received some form of benefit from a contribution-based program in the previous 2 years; 54 percent said someone in their household received some form of benefit from a needs-based program in the previous 2 years.
• Fifty-six percent of farmworkers reported that they had health insurance, 66 percent said their spouse had health insurance, and 94 percent reported that all (92%) or at least some (2%) of their children had health insurance.
• Seventy-one percent of farmworkers used a health care provider in the United States sometime in the last two years.
• The last time they visited a health care provider, 44 percent went to a private medical doctor’s office or private clinic, 33 percent said they visited a community health center or migrant health clinic, 15 percent saw a dentist, 7 percent went to a hospital, and 2 percent visited other providers such as a healer, chiropractor, or emergency room.
• Approximately a quarter of farmworkers paid for their last health care visit out of their own pockets (26%): 20 percent were uninsured so they had to pay the whole fee, and 5 percent had insurance so their out-of-pocket expense was likely a co-payment.
• The most common difficulty farm workers reported facing when they needed health care was that health care visits were too expensive (23%).

Citation

Ornelas, I., Fung, W., Gabbard, S., Carroll, D. (2021). JBS International. Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2017–2018: A Demographic and Employment Profile of United States Farmworkers. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Download Report

This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.