State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, and state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Bakersfield, introduced legislation to create a tax credit for agricultural employers to help cover the cost of paying overtime wages to farmworkers.
Senate Bill 921, co-sponsored by the California Farm Bureau and the California Association of Winegrape Growers, aims to ensure farmworkers have more opportunities to earn overtime pay while also providing relief to struggling agricultural businesses, according to the farm bureau.
“I’m proud to introduce SB 921, a straightforward bill that gives California’s farm employers a payroll tax credit to help cover the extra cost of overtime pay for our hardworking farmworkers,” Grove said. “This means more overtime hours and better take-home pay for the folks who put food on America’s tables.
“This is a win-win solution for both the business and our farmworkers who want to work more hours during their peak season.”
Hurtado added, “Behind every meal is a story of love, sacrifice and hard work in the fields. SB 921 honors the sweat and sacrifice behind our food with a modern, fair approach to wages—because in agriculture, farms, workers and families rise or fall together.”
The bill addresses concerns farmworkers themselves raised with lawmakers in Sacramento last year in support of SB 628, a similar agricultural overtime tax credit that Grove introduced, the California Farm Bureau said in a press release.
SB 921 would establish a payroll tax credit to offset the cost to employers of paying overtime wages to their agricultural employees. “Overtime wages” are defined as the difference between an employees’ overtime rate of pay and their regular rate of pay.
The bill would also increase overtime hours for farmworkers..
Farmworkers have experienced reduced work hours and earnings since the Phase-In Overtime for Agricultural Workers Act of 2016 became law, according to research by Dr. Alexandra Hill, an assistant professor of cooperative extension at the University of California, Berkeley.
According to national surveys Hill analyzed, California farmworkers reported working between 4.2 and 4.7 fewer hours per week in 2022 than in 2012. The National Agricultural Workers Survey found that farmworkers reported reduced average weekly earnings of $120 per week during that timeframe, while the American Community Survey found farmworkers’ annual earnings declined by $2,800 from 2012 to 2023.
Shannon Douglass, president of the California Farm Bureau, said, “Farmers warned the Legislature a decade ago that changes to the agricultural overtime law would reduce work hours and cost farmworkers wages, and those concerns have proven true. Many farmworker families have seen hours and earnings decline, a reality farmworkers themselves shared with lawmakers in Sacramento last year in support of Senator Grove’s ag overtime tax credit bill.
“Meanwhile, family farms operating on thin margins have been forced to make hard choices just to avoid operating at a loss. This tax credit is a practical solution that puts money directly into the hands of farmworkers, helps farms remain viable employers and strengthens the rural communities that grow our food.”
