Davis-Bacon Wage Requirements

Economy
1

Get rid of Davis-Bacon Wage requirements, which artificially increase wages and benefits to workers on federally funded projects. Typically union wages are considered the prevailing wage. This can increase costs greatly, especially in right-to-work states.

“The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA) require payment of local prevailing wages to construction workers performing work on federally funded construction projects. The Davis-Bacon Act (DBA) applies to each federal government or District of Columbia contract in excess of $2,000 for the construction, alteration, or repair (including painting and decorating) of public buildings or public works and requires that contractors and subcontractors pay their laborers and mechanics employed under such contracts no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits for corresponding work on similar projects in the area.”

If these requirements were to be lifted, many infrastructure projects could be completed at a fraction of the cost.

2

After 20 years in private industry, I took a new job at a government site and was shocked as a tax payer that this “law” even existed and what it did to project costs. We casually refer to it as the “Pi factor” because it raises the cost of government projects by approximately 3.1415 times the normal cost. If you can’t abolish it, at least update it and index the cost threshold for inflation.