Prevailing wage
The wage rate and fringe benefit rate the US Department of Labor has determined to be prevailing for a class of worker in a locality, for use on covered federally funded contracts.
A prevailing wage is not a market average and not a salary. It is a rate the Department of Labor has determined, for a named classification of worker in a named locality, and published in a wage determination.
Its force comes from a contract. Where a federal or federally assisted construction contract is covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, the contracting officer incorporates a wage determination into the contract, and the rates in that incorporated determination are the ones that govern work under it.
Two consequences follow, and both are easy to miss. The first is that a determination published for a county is not automatically the determination that governs a particular project in that county — that depends on what was incorporated. The second is that a rate published today may not be the rate that governed a contract awarded last year, because determinations are revised.
If you are looking for what a construction job pays in your area, a wage determination is the wrong document. It is a compliance schedule for federal contracting, not a guide to what employers offer.
Related
To see what a particular determination published on a particular date, look up the revision that was in force.
This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor, the General Services Administration, or any other government agency. Wage determination data is reproduced from public records.