diff --git a/timm/data/loader.py b/timm/data/loader.py
index 4d201e4c6e..83ebfc4f2e 100644
--- a/timm/data/loader.py
+++ b/timm/data/loader.py
@@ -334,7 +334,7 @@ def create_loader(
         assert num_aug_repeats == 0, "RepeatAugment not currently supported in non-distributed or IterableDataset use"
         if balance_classes:
             assert samples_csv_path, "Provide csv with labels to use balance_classes."
-            samples_csv = pd.read_csv(samples_csv_path)
+            samples_csv = pd.read_csv(samples_csv_path).astype(str)
             all_labels = samples_csv["label"].values
             unique, counts = np.unique(all_labels, return_counts=True)
             unique_counts = {v: c for v, c in zip(unique, counts)}