Economic Well-Being of Farm Households
by
Carol Jones,
Hisham S. El-Osta, and Robert Green
Economic Brief No. (EB-7) 4 pp, March 2006
Cover Image for EB7
Farm subsidy programs were introduced in the 1930s largely due to concern for chronically low, and highly variable, incomes of US farm households. Today commodity-based support programs are still prominent, though income and wealth of the average farm household now exceed that of the average nonfarm households - by a large margin. Farm income continues to be highly variable, but the small set of farm households most at risk for income variability - because farm income represents more than one-third of household income - are those operating large farms. And they have substantial net worth, which cushions uncertain farm income.
Keywords: Farm households, household income, household wealth, household net worth, living expenses, joint income-wealth indicator, economic well-being, financial well-being, Off-farm employment, Income variability
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