Farmers and Farm Laborers in Employment Covered by Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

E A R L I E R STUDIES have shown that, although agricultural employment is excluded from the coverage of the old-age and survivors insurance program, agricultural workers participate to a considerable extent in the program because the wages which they earn when they shift temporarily into industrial or commercial jobs are taxable. While they pay contributions on their covered employment at the same rate as any other insurable worker, however, only seldom are their earnings large enough and sufficiently well distributed over their working lives to give them the requisite insured status on which their own and their families' benefit rights ultimately depend.