Prevailing Wage Is a Survey Result, Not a Government Pay Scale.

You see "prevailing wage" on a bid invitation or a job posting for a federally funded commercial job, next to an hourly figure higher than what your shop normally pays. The question is where that figure comes from and who decides it. It is not negotiated on the job, it is not set by the general contractor, and it is published before the contract is signed.

The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts require prevailing wages for laborers and mechanics employed on the site of the work of certain federal or federally assisted construction contracts. The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor sets the rates. A wage determination is the listing of wage rates and fringe benefit rates for each classification of laborers and mechanics the Administrator has determined to be prevailing in a given area, usually a county, for a particular type of construction. Both halves are floors. The basic hourly rate and the fringe benefit rate listed for your classification are each a minimum the contractor cannot pay below.

The number comes from a survey. The Division collects wage and fringe data on Form WD-10, submitted voluntarily by contractors, contractors' associations, labor organizations, public officials, and other interested parties. The arithmetic is fixed by regulation at 29 CFR 1.2. If a majority, meaning more than 50 percent, of workers in a classification were paid the same rate, that rate prevails. If no rate clears a majority, the rate paid to the greatest number prevails, provided that group is at least 30 percent of those employed. If nothing reaches 30 percent, the Division uses a weighted average. Fringe benefits prevail if more than half the workers in the classification received any. General determinations are published at sam.gov.

For your check, this means you are paid for the work you actually perform, not for your title or your card. The Division's compliance guidance is direct: skill level and licensure do not matter, and if a worker is performing the work of an electrician, such as pulling wire through conduit, that worker must be paid as an electrician. When your hours span two classifications, the contractor must keep time records reflecting each one. Apprentices are the single exception to the full rate, and only when individually registered in a program registered with the Department's Office of Apprenticeship or a state apprenticeship agency. An apprentice who is not properly registered, or who is working outside the allowed ratio, is owed the full rate.

The common misconception is that prevailing wage is a government pay scale set by policy. It is a count of what contractors in that county reported paying. That has consequences. A classification with too little reported data gets no published rate at all, and any rate is only as current as the last survey of that area. The Division generally allows three months for data submission, and analysis can run 12 to 18 months past the cut-off date.

You can check it. Your contractor submits certified payroll to the contracting agency weekly, commonly on Form WH-347, signed with a statement of compliance, and keeps those records three years after the contract is completed. Compare the classification on that payroll against the work you did. For what commercial and industrial electrical work pays outside the public-works system, see the AmpScouts Commercial Electrician Salary Guide.