If you’ve been shocked at your recent grocery store bill, hold on to your hats. Prices are going up, according to the Trump Administration’s Labor Department.
[S]ouped-up immigration enforcement has devastated the agricultural workforce and created a significant “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages,” according to a document filed in the Federal Register last week…
“The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers,” the document says, adding that “this threat will grow” given new federal funding for immigration enforcement under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
It’s not just prices going up. It’s farm income going down. Trump’s already devastated soybean farmers by ticking off China, our primary export market until 2025.
Guess what the Labor Department thinks should be the solution, as outlined in this proposed rule making?
Lower wages. That’s right, entice foreign workers to come to a country hostile to brown people via controversial H-2A visas but with lower wages. Moreover, the current rule requires those signing for the H-2A worker to provide housing; this rulemaking rescinds that, “allow[ing] farm employers to charge H-2A workers for their housing.”
According to United Farm Workers:
The proposal will cut income for farm workers by at least one third, with cuts ranging from $5 to $7 per hour, depending on the state. In total, farm workers will lose $2.46 billion annually in wages and $17.29 billion over the next ten years.
Last month, Politico highlighted the plight in Pennsylvania:
In Tioga County, where President Donald Trump won 75 percent of the vote in 2024, farmers are losing patience with the White House’s promise of a quick solution for farm workers. Their urgent need is highlighted by stories like those of a multigenerational dairy farm that sold off all its dairy cows because the owner could not find workers and another where a farmer’s job listings have received no responses…
The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.
Farmers often turn to undocumented laborers because of the red tape and high costs associated with the H-2A program, which allows migrant workers to fill jobs in seasonal agricultural industries. They also complain that H-2A, the nation’s largest temporary visa program, is off-limits to employers looking to hire for year-round operations like dairy farms.
The Labor Department filing says:
“The Department anticipates an imminent and significant decline in the number of available illegal aliens who had, in significant part, previously worked unlawfully in the U.S. agricultural sector.” This cannot be compensated for with a boost to imports, the Department claims, and will lead to shortages in fresh produce and other crops requiring human workers.
A quick reminder that the Trump Administration does not seem focused on the illegal hiring of undocumented workers or the clear need for additional workers who receive a living wage.
The predicted domino effect has begun in earnest.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com