(NewsDakota.com/NAFB) – The American Farm Bureau Federation urges Congress to pass legislation to freeze the flawed 2023 Adverse Effect Wage Rate, or AEWR.

AFBF says the rate distorts labor costs for farmers across the country who hire nearly 400,000 employees through the H-2A program. The bipartisan Farm Operations Support Act temporarily resets the AEWR at 2022 levels, providing much need wage relief to farm families and giving Congress an opportunity to deliver a fair and reasonable solution. Farm Bureau says the 2023 AEWR rule missed the mark by such a wide margin that farmers in some states experienced required wage increases of more than ten percent after smaller increases last year.

The AEWR has significantly outpaced increases in the national average wage for most workers in America for most of a decade. AFBF President Zippy Duvall adds, “Farmers are committed to paying their employees a fair wage, but the new AEWR rule used flawed data to reach a flawed conclusion.”