Social Security for "Industrialized" Agriculture

T H E ADOPTION of a broad definition of "agricultural labor" in the amendments to the Social Security Act in 1 9 3 9 deprived some 4 5 0 , 0 0 0 to 6 0 0 , 0 0 0 persons of the old-age insurance protection they had enjoyed under the original act of 1 9 3 5 . I n addition, 100 ,000 to 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 workers whose s tatus under t h a t program had previously been in doubt were definitely excluded. The major agricultural groups affected were field workers employed under essentially industrial conditions, employees of labor contractors, and persons employed by packing and processing plants in preparing farm products for market. The change in the Federal s ta tute also affected unemployment compensation coverage, but less directly, for workers' rights under State unemployment compensation laws were not affected unless the State chose to conform its system to the definition in the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. Two-thirds of the States have thus amended their provisions. The reaction of the persons newly excluded, typified in the following excerpts from letters in our files, has ranged from bewilderment a t the designation of their jobs as "agricultural labor" to indignation and disappointment a t their removal from the social security program. "The law is a gross injustice," wrote an employee of a greenhouse. "Scores of men are engaged in raising flowers (which is more of a luxury product t h a n anything else and in no way connected with a food growing project) and are now left without any old-age insurance or unemployment insurance." An irrigation ditch worker voiced his disapproval in a letter to his Congressman as follows: "I have been working for this canal company for 1 2 years. We were under the Social Security for 3 years and then got