Farm workers get overtime pay and wage rules for first time.
S. 5304 — Fairness for Farm Workers Act · Filed by Alex Padilla (D-CA) · 13 cosponsors · Introduced Aug 6, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill lets farm workers earn extra pay for long hours. Starting in 2027, farms must pay time-and-a-half for hours over 55 per week. By 2030, that drops to 40 hours per week for big farms. Small farms with 25 or fewer workers get three extra years. The bill also stops farms from paying less than minimum wage. It stops farms from hiring children for farm work.
Who it affects
Farm workers gain the right to overtime pay and minimum wage. Large farms must follow the rules starting in 2027. Small farms have until 2030 or 2033 to follow the rules.
One thing to notice
Farm workers have been left out of these pay rules since 1938. This bill is the first time federal law will require farms to pay overtime.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
13 cosponsors: 12 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Aug 6, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Aug 6, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- overtime — Extra pay for working more hours than the standard work week.
- time-and-a-half — Pay rate of one and one-half times the normal hourly wage.
- minimum wage — The lowest hourly pay an employer is allowed to give a worker.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,705 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-23.
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