The National Agricultural Worker Survey has been interviewing 1,500 to 3,000 non-H-2A workers employed on US crop farms each year since 1989. Analysis of three decades NAWS data and reports find that crop workers are aging, settled in one place, and working 200 days a year for one farm employer.
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The 2020 census found a slower growing and aging US population. The US population expanded at its slowest pace since the 1930s, up 23 million or 7.4 percent from 308 million in 2010 to 331 million in 2020. Puerto Rico had 3.3 million residents, so some US population totals are 334 million.
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The US is the land of opportunity, but how much mobility is there from low- to high-wage occupations? Less than 10 percent of US workers in the top income quintile had fathers who were in the bottom quintile, which is about half of the 20 percent average for upward mobility from the bottom to the top income quintiles between fathers and sons in OECD countries.
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Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services issued a report in August 2021 that blamed rising imports of Mexican fruits and vegetables for a reduction of $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion in Florida sales of fruits and vegetables. Between 2015 and 2020, the value of fruits and vegetables imported from Mexico rose from $10 billion a year to $16 billion a year.
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The world’s population of 7.8 billion increases by one percent or 78 million a year. The population growth rate is expected to slow to 0.5 percent in 2050, when the population of 9.7 billion will be increasing by almost 50 million a year.
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Most of the 11 western states were in D2 severe drought in summer 2021. The US drought monitor showed that over 90 percent of the land in AZ, CA, NV, and UT was in D2 severe drought, and significant areas were in D4 exceptional drought.
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Alaska is a state of contrasts and superlatives. Alaska is the largest US state in size but one of the smallest in population, with 733,000 residents in 663,267 square miles, 1.1 people per square mile, while Manhattan has 1.6 million residents in 23 square miles or 70,000 people per square mile. With Alaska’s population density, Manhattan would have 25 people.
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The UN estimated 272 million international migrants in 2019, including 245 million who were 15 and older. The ILO estimated that 169 million of the 15+ migrants, 69 percent, were in the labor force of the countries to which they moved, up from 150 million migrant workers in 2013, suggesting an average increase of three million migrant workers a year.
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The number of unauthorized foreigners more than tripled between 1990 and 2007, increasing from 3.5 million to 12.2 million before declining during and after the 2008-09 recession to an estimated 10.5 million in 2017.
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Americans spent $1.7 trillion on food in 2020, down from $1.8 trillion in 2019. More food was purchased to consume at home in 2020, which is cheaper than consuming food away from home.
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