Wages and benefits for farm employees are not only important to the employees themselves but to the employers as they attempt to provide fair compensation for the duties performed. With very little data available addressing issues of average compensation amounts, value of benefits provided and hours worked per week this survey was conducted to collect and share baseline data for farm employers and employees.
A survey was conducted in early 2007 to gather data on farm employee wages and benefits in Ohio . The “Wages and Benefits For Farm Employees” study was conducted by distribution of surveys by Extension Educators, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics Faculty and Staff and allied organizations. Surveys were returned and summarized for 122 farm employees in early 2007. Data was collected for each employee on education, years of experience, type of general farm duties, days per week worked, hours per week worked, time off (holidays, vacation, sick leave and personal days), wages paid in cash, fringe benefits (vehicle, farm produce or commodities, meals, clothing, insurance, housing, continuing education, recreation, vacation, retirement plan, use of machinery and equipment), and bonuses. Data was collected on farm size by gross sales and type of farm.
In this study we collected data for full-time and part-time farm employees. According to this survey, it was found that the average value of cash wages paid to full-time farm employees is $28,392 per year. (See Table 1.) The average value of benefits is $4268 per year and the average value of bonuses is $793 per year. Adding these three figures together amounts to a total compensation of $33,453 per year for full-time farm employees.
Full-time farm employees average 12.3 years of experience and 8.4 years of tenure at their present workplace. Full-time workers average 2463 hours worked per year. This data enables us to calculate the average wage per hour and total compensation per hour. The average wage for full-time farm employees according to this study is $11.53 per hour and the total compensation for full-time farm employees is $13.58 per hour.
Part-time employees average $9.01 per hour of cash wages. Their benefits average $1,110 per year and their bonuses average $194 per year. Part-time employees average 7.9 years of experience and 5.3 years of tenure at their present workplace.
The distribution of wages for full-time employees is presented in Table 2 and shows the large majority of full-time employees earn between $20,001 and $40,000 per year (77.22%). Full-time employees earning between $25,001 and $30,000 per year in wages comprised 27.85% of our surveyed population and was the largest subset in the distribution. The second largest subset of full-time farm employees fell in the $20,001 to $25,000 per year range.
Summary data presented in this paper is the first in a series of papers examining the findings of this research study. Further articles and papers will be available through the Ohio Ag Manager Newsletter ( http://ohioagmanager.osu.edu/ ), Ohioline ( http://ohioline.osu.edu/ ), and the OSU Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics Farm Management ( http://www-agecon.ag.ohio-state.edu/ ).
