H-2A Wage Offers

Limitaciones

Federal fiscal years (October 1 - September 30), not calendar years: `year` is the fiscal year of DOL's final determination on the application. FY2026 is PARTIAL: decisions through June 30, 2026 only (DOL's Q3 file); do not compare it with complete years. Measured on the complete years FY2020-FY2025, the average over decisions from October through the same end date ran $0.00 to $0.05 below the full-year average (at or below it every year), so FY2026's partial figure likely reads low by about that much. What the wage is: the hourly wage the employer offered on the H-2A job order (WAGE_OFFER, Form ETA-790A item A.8b), which must be at least the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) DOL sets for the occupation and state - so the Georgia average largely tracks Georgia's AEWR. It is an offer, not earnings: piece-rate pay, overtime and hours actually worked are not in it. The average is weighted by positions certified - each application's offer counts once per certified position - and covers every Georgia application DOL certified at least one position on (the positions h2a_certifications counts), except those paid per another unit. Georgia averages: FY2020 $11.66; FY2021 $11.76; FY2022 $12.00; FY2023 $13.52; FY2024 $14.63; FY2025 $16.01; FY2026 $12.75. FY2026 is not comparable with earlier years for a second reason: DOL's October 2, 2025 interim final rule replaced the AEWR methodology (occupation- and skill-level rates from BLS OEWS wages, replacing the USDA Farm Labor Survey) for job orders filed from that date (Congressional Research Service, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12408); Georgia's FY2026 offers include lower rates than FY2025's. Excluded: job orders whose wage is stated per month - FY2020 1 application (6 positions); FY2021 1 application (6 positions); FY2022 1 application (6 positions); FY2023 1 application (4 positions); FY2024 6 applications (863 positions); FY2025 3 applications (42 positions); FY2026 7 applications (568 positions). 6 of them are livestock jobs (SOC 45-2093) paid a genuine monthly wage ($1,682.33-$2,058.31 a month); the other 14 (1,463 positions, all from FY2024 on) state an hourly rate ($12.27-$16.08, at or near the AEWR) under 'Month' - an evident unit slip - and are excluded rather than reinterpreted. Positions averaged plus positions excluded equal DOL's published Georgia positions certified in every year. An hourly offer below the $7.25 federal minimum wage would be excluded as impossible; none exists. Geography is the application's FIRST worksite, placed exactly as in h2a_certifications (DOL's county, corrected from the geocoded street address where certain, then by the certain-only ZIP rule; blank counties from the address or the ZIP's population-dominant county) - see that topic's limitations for the counts and risks. Applications with no placeable county count in the state rows only (FY2025: 99 positions on 1 application), so county positions sum to fewer than the state's in those years. `soc_occupation` uses h2a_certifications' five named occupations (the five with the most Georgia positions certified) and 'other'; county rows are totals ('all'). A county or occupation average may rest on a single employer's job order - read it with num_applications_with_wage. No suppression: rows are job orders, not people, and DOL publishes each offer with the employer's name. An average is NULL only where no certified hourly position exists.