If federal authorities follow the recent Farm Labor Survey, Adverse Effect Wage Rates will go up in 2022.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the 2021 Farm Labor Survey, a series of averages of how much producers pay their workers throughout the country. By process, the U.S. Department of Labor uses those averages to set the following year’s Adverse Effect Wage Rates, or AEWR, an H-2A minimum wage for various regions throughout the country.

If the Labor Department follows the same process, tree-fruit-producing states would see the following AEWR for 2022:

—California, $17.51, up from $16.05.

—Washington and Oregon, $17.41, up from $16.34. 

—New York, $15.66, up from $14.99.

—Pennsylvania, $15.54, up from $14.05.

—Michigan, $15.37, up from $14.72.

—by Ross Courtney