The changing values of the U.S. farm workers’ legal status and labor quality in the U.S. farm workforce

This paper uses the most recently available data to provide current evidence about farm workers’ wage determinants with a focus on legal status. The preliminary results show that while legal status contributes significantly to the wage differences, it is not the major factor. Higher educational attainment, farm work experience, better English-speaking skills, and work in field crop or horticultural production have significant and positive impacts on the wage rate. Legal status is associated with more than 3% higher wages on average. However, there are also structural changes on the legal status effect over a thirty-year time span under potential policy influences. After taking into account the compositional shift among demographic characteristics, employment types, types of work and other factors, the quality-adjusted hourly earnings still grew nearly three times (in nominal terms) over the past three decades.