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Abstract
Farmers' contributions to their employees' (and their own) social security, insurance and retirement programs, and other fringe benefits can add more than a third to farm labor costs. Those contributions (some required by law) can also sway farmers' views of mechanization and farm organization (that is, operating as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation). Yet these costs are usually omitted from agricultural studies, so one cannot determine how much the programs add to farm production costs. This report describes the basic employee fringe benefit programs and the range of costs involved so future cost studies can include them.