Hired Farm Workers in the United States

Excerpts from the report Introduction: Hired farm laborers and their families comprise approximately one-fourth of the agricultural population of the United States. The status, opportunities, and contributions of such a large segment of our agricultural population deserve more attention. In recent years, approximately 14 million individuals worked on farms all or a part of the year. Of these, approximately 5 million were hired workers, including sharecroppers. The major types of farm laborers are regular farm workers, sharecroppers, local seasonal farm workers and migratory seasonal farm workers. Women and children are important portions of all of these major types. Boys and girls from the families of farm operators and from rural and urban communities normally constitute an important part of both the regular and the seasonal hired workers. Their well-being is of the utmost concern, not only to agriculture but to the entire Nation. For the most part, women and children employed as hired farm workers are without the protection of labor laws applying to their employment in non- agricultural industries. Sharecroppers are classified as farm laborers since they usually occupy the same position as other types of farm labor and should be included in a hired farm labor program.