Table 1 provides the principal farm operator household finances over a five-year period. Despite the median income data for all farms, additional data from the Economic Research Service indicates that from 1996- 2020, roughly 75% of just over 2.1 million farms had gross sales of less than $50,000. This information is from another USDA, Economic Research Service report from December 2020 entitled Farm household income and characteristics: All farms and family farms, by farm size class (gross sales), 1996-2019 and can be found at: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics/ This suggests that the majority of farms are not providing a living wage for a family of four from the farming operation. In 2019, the living wage in the United States was $16.54 per hour, or $68,808 per year, before taxes for a family of four with two working adults and two children (Glasmeier, 2020).
Table 1
Principal Farm Operator Household Finances, 2016-21F
Item
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020F
2021F
Number of family farms
2,027,269
1,989,574
1,979,368
1,967,617
1,967,617
1,967,617
Income, median dollars per household
Farm income
-940
-1,035
-1,735
296
767
495
Off-farm income
66,468
67,500
65,841
68,750
69,784
71,407
Earned
38,527
Income
40,000
43,225
37,500
39,574
38,255
Unearned
28,078
Income
24,962
19,000
20,404
27,225
28,953
Total household income
86,086
76,250
74,707
72,481
83,111
86,917
U.S. household income*
NA
NA
59,039
61,372
63,179
68,703
Note: F = forecast; NA = not available. *Estimates of U.S. household income are produced by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P60-263, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019 (and earlier editions). Adapted from USDA, Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2016-19 Agricultural Resource Management Survey. Data as of February 5, 2021. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics/ In the public domain.
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