KANSAS CITY, MO – Family farms accounted for 98 percent of all U.S. farms in 2019, according to data released by the Economic Research Service (ERS). A family farm is defined as any farm organized as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family corporation.
Many farm households rely on off-farm employment, with 71 percent having one or more household members earning off-farm wages in 2019.
ERS researchers used county-level unemployment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate the average Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) payment at $996 per household, a total of $1.3 billion for all farm households.
Family farm households also received Coronavirus (COVID-19) related financial assistance from multiple Federal sources, including Economic Impact Payments (EIP), where these payments provided families with an immediate injection of cash to spur demand and mitigate the economic downturn.
The full EIP amounted to $1,200 for individuals or $2,400 for couples filing jointly, with an additional $500 per dependent.
According to data from USDA’s 2019 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), the median married and unmarried household may have received an increase in one month’s total household income of 30 percent and 24 percent, respectively, as a result of EIP.
Researchers from USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) also estimated that family farm households received a total of $4.3 billion from EIP, with 84 percent going to married households.
In total, these programs provided $5.6 billion in assistance to farm households in 2020.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)