The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since 2009. Some states, counties and cities have raised their minimum wages above the federal level, so that 60 percent of US workers in 2019 were in ...

Trade was in the news in 2025 because of President Trump’s trade war. After imposing tariffs on a wide range of products and countries, the US in Fall 2025 imposed average tariffs of 19 percent, the ...

The Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years, collects detailed data on the agricultural sector, including the cost of hired farm labor. Labor expenses have been about 13 percent of farm ...

President Trump pledged to deport a million unauthorized foreigners during his first year in office, almost 3,000 a day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent arrests of unauthorized ...

In June 1975, California enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), the first law that gave farm workers the right to organize unions. Congress was considering pro-union amendments to the ...

The US animal slaughtering and processing industry (NAICS 3116) employed an average 553,000 workers in 2024, up from 514,000 in 2001. There were 4,700 NAICS 3116establishments, and weekly wages ...

DOL certified 20,000 applications to fill 317,000 jobs with H-2A workers in the first three quarters of FY25, up from 19,000 applications to fill 310,000 jobs in the same period of FY24. During the ...

The number of foreign-born US residents peaked at over 53 million in January 2025 and fell by 1.5 million in six months, the first decline in the US immigrant population since the mid-1960s. Pew ...

US net farm income is expected to increase from $130 billion in 2024 to $180 billion in 2025; government payments are expected to rise from $10 billion in 2024 to $40 billion in 2025. Crops receipts ...

In February 2024, the UFW was certified on the basis of a card check petition to represent 640 employees at 1,400-acre Wonderful nurseries in Wasco. Wonderful contested the legality of card check and ...

On August 1, 2025, President Trump imposed 35 percent tariffs on the 40 percent of Canadian goods imports that are not covered by USMCA; Trump gave Mexico 90 more days to negotiate a trade agreement ...

A federal judge in August 2025 ordered detainees removed from the Florida state detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz because neither the federal nor state government had done sufficient ...