Labor Department Ends Survey Of Migrant Farm-Worker Status

[question everything]

Labor Department Ends Survey Of Migrant Farm-Worker Status

By MIRIAM JORDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 24, 2005; Page A4

The U.S. Department of Labor has suspended the only national survey that collects detailed data on employment, health and living conditions of migrant and seasonal farm workers.

The move has caused concern among some policy makers and scholars, who say the survey has documented the rapid growth of immigrant labor in the agriculture industry. Based on interviews with thousands of laborers, the National Agricultural Workers Survey gathered data that helped the federal government allocate funds to health, education and social programs in rural areas for nearly two decades.

Among the survey's key findings is that the U.S. is increasingly dependent on illegal immigrants to harvest its crops. More than half of all crop workers in the country are illegal immigrants, up from just 12% in 1990, according to the latest farm workers' survey. The agricultural industry employs about 2.5 million people, whose average annual family income is $10,000 to $12,000.

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A representative for the Department of Labor said the survey had been suspended because the congressional mandate to conduct it had expired in 1993 and that the data were mainly benefiting other government departments or agencies, such as Health and Human Services and Education. Veronica Stidvent, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor, added that "transferring to another agency that uses the data to a greater extent is an option we will explore."

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Write to Miriam Jordan at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110652264955033616,00.html

[papau]

1. If no data - then there is no problem-and how dare you wave a hypothetical

in my face!

Just like there is no specific Bush Social Security privatization plan, so how dare you critique "it".