Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2646 into law this week, creating a special $19.75-an-hour minimum wage for California agricultural workers starting January 1, 2027. The rate rises every year after that, tied to the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment.
The law covers “approved agricultural employees” — largely H-2A guestworkers — plus “corresponding employees”: domestic workers doing the same or substantially similar work for the same employer in the same county. Everyone in that bucket gets $19.75 an hour.
That is a $2.85-an-hour jump over California’s current $16.90 statewide minimum — nearly triple the $7.25 federal minimum wage. For comparison, the regular California minimum only rises to $17.40 in 2027. The farmworker floor is about to run way ahead of everything else.
This is a direct counterpunch to the Trump administration. Last October the Labor Department changed how it calculates the H-2A wage rate, dropping California’s effective rate from $19.97 to $16.90. The United Farm Workers sued. Sacramento’s answer: a state law that puts the floor right back up at $19.75.
Thirty farm and business groups begged Newsom to veto the bill. They warned of a 14% wage increase, hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual labor costs, and higher food prices at the checkout.
Western Growers President Dave Puglia called it an “economically stupid mandate,” noting California has already lost nearly 30% of its family farms in the last 25 years. California Fresh Fruit Association President Casey Creamer warned that “if we continue making it more difficult to produce food here, we risk shifting more of our food supply to foreign production.”
The bill deliberately avoids naming the H-2A program — trade press says the wording is aimed at dodging federal preemption challenges, and analysts doubt that trick survives a courtroom. Expect legal challenges.
What they’re not telling you
The victory lap is for the press release. The bill comes due at the farm gate: growers who can’t absorb a mandated 14% wage hike cut acreage, automate, or buy from Mexico and Chile — and your produce aisle will tell you exactly which one they picked. Roughly 850,000 people perform farm work in California at some point during the year. You don’t pile hundreds of millions in new labor costs onto a thin-margin industry and get cheaper groceries.
Photo: video still via The National Desk (TND) on YouTube.