12 States Stand With Farmworkers Against DOL Wage Cuts

On July 8, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a coalition of 11 other state attorneys general in backing the United Farm Workers’ legal challenge to the Trump administration’s effort to slash wages for both H-2A visa workers and domestic farmworkers alike.

The move signals a rare flash of political friction over one of agriculture’s most fraught issues: the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), the federal minimum wage that protects farmworkers when growers bring in temporary foreign labor. Through a rule change finalized in 2025, the Department of Labor (DOL) has moved to implement a methodology that will slice $2.46 billion annually from farmworker pay, spreading the hit across both H-2A and domestic workers nationwide.

The Rule’s Real Impact

The AEWR has been the farmworker movement’s most durable tool since Cesar Chavez fought for its protection in the 1970s. The rate is supposed to prevent employers from using temporary visa workers to drive down wages for workers born here. But the new DOL methodology guts that protection: it abandons reliable farm-specific wage data, manufactures lower-paying job categories where none existed before, and—for the first time—lets growers deduct housing costs directly from worker paychecks.

Under the new rules, H-2A workers in “entry-level” positions will earn as little as $13.45 per hour, down sharply from prior years. Experienced workers will floor out at $15.71—a reduction the Economic Policy Institute estimates would push the effective farmworker minimum to $13.70 an hour, down from $17.43 in 2025. In states like Washington, where housing deductions run $2.49 per hour, the cut stacks on itself.

A Rare Coalition

The attorneys general filing the amicus brief represent California, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. Their brief argues that the rule ignores a “sordid history of farmworker mistreatment” and defies the federal statute that prohibits using H-2A in a way that undercuts domestic farm wages.

“As the son of parents who joined Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to defend farmworkers,” Bonta said in a statement, “I’m driven by the same commitment to protect these often-exploited workers, including those in the H-2A program.”

The United Farm Workers filed for summary judgment seeking to permanently enjoin the DOL from applying the 2025 interim final rule. If granted, the injunction would restore the prior AEWR methodology and prevent the wage cascade from taking hold.

Farmworkers Under Pressure

The timing cuts deep. Farm bankruptcies surged 46% between 2024 and 2025, as commodity prices, debt loads, and input costs strangled family operations. Desperate growers, unable to pay living wages to domestic workers, reach for the H-2A program—which the rule change makes vastly more profitable for employers and crushing for workers. The coalition’s brief warns the rule effectively incentivizes growers to replace domestic labor with cheaper foreign workers, hollowing out rural wage standards.

For H-2A workers themselves—often migrants from Mexico and Central America working under visa conditions that restrict their mobility and bargaining power—the cuts are brutal. Housing deductions, if allowed, turn a nominal wage into a near-poverty check. And for domestic farmworkers competing for work in the same fields, the message is clear: growers have been handed a license to undercut.

The Stakes

The case is still moving through U.S. District Court in Eastern California. If the UFW prevails on summary judgment, the DOL’s rule stays blocked. If not, the lower rates take effect—a $2.46 billion wealth transfer from farmworker pockets to grower coffers and corporate ag supply chains.

For the 12 attorneys general now on record against the rule, the fight echoes a 50-year struggle. Farmworker protections don’t just matter to the people doing the work; they’re the floor beneath which rural wages everywhere can fall. Without AEWR, there’s nothing stopping a race to the bottom.