Prevailing Wage Estimating Services for Davis-Bacon and State Schedules
Prevailing wage estimating built the way a covered labor line is actually assembled: every crew position mapped to a determination classification, base and fringe kept apart, burden applied only where it lands. Delivered 24-96 hours from an approved fixed quote, determination cited in writing.
What a covered labor line carries
- Every crew position mapped to a classification line, cited back to the determination
- Base hourly rate and fringe rate kept apart, never merged into one loaded figure
- Fringe priced twice: as bona fide plan contributions and as cash in lieu
- Employer burden computed on the wage portion only, at your rates when you send them
- Apprentice blend capped at the ratio the registered program allows
Davis-Bacon estimating services, and why the determination is only half the number
The determination hands you a rate and nothing else. It does not name your crew, set a production rate, decide how the fringe is discharged, or count the hours the covered scope takes.
What does a wage determination actually give you?
Two figures per classification line: a basic hourly rate and a fringe rate. That is the entire document. It does not name your crew, set a daily output, choose between a bona fide plan and cash in lieu, or count the hours your scope takes. Those four decisions are where a covered bid is won or lost.
Why do the free rates on SAM.gov not price the bid?
Because the rate is the one input on a covered job nobody competes on. Everyone bidding reads the same two figures off the same line. What separates the numbers is which classification each position maps to, how many hours the crew burns per unit, how the fringe is discharged, and where the apprentice ratio caps the blend.
What are the two components of a prevailing wage rate?
The basic hourly rate and the fringe rate, printed side by side on the classification line. Fringe can be discharged as bona fide plan contributions, as cash in lieu of fringes, or as a mix. That choice never changes what the worker is owed. It changes what the hour costs you, materially.
Do you need an outside estimator to read a determination?
Often no, and that is the honest answer. One classification, four hundred hours, a county you bid every month: read it yourself and keep the fee. Send it out when the covered scope crosses several crafts, when the fringe treatment is still open, or when the advertised bid date lands in a week nobody has three clear days in.
Davis-Bacon cost estimating, the labor line built in eleven steps
Every other section on this page is commentary on one of these operations. Eleven of them, grouped into the six passes an estimator makes before a covered labor line is worth submitting.
Measure the covered scope, and only the covered scope
Crew composition, production rate, then the classification each position maps to
Pull base and fringe, then split the fringe into plan and cash
Burden the wage portion, then apply the ratio-capped apprentice blend
Zone pay, travel and shift work, then escalation for predetermined increases
Add the compliance line, then roll to CSI division with the determination cited
Wage determination classifications are decided by tasks, not by job titles
This is the decision contractors are most afraid of handing to somebody else, and they are right to be. Here is how the map is built, how it is checked, and what going wrong costs in either direction.
Tasks decide the line, not the job title
What a person is called on your payroll has no standing. What they touch does.
Operating engineers split by equipment group
BY MACHINEOne operator, several rates depending on what they climb into that morning. A schedule listing Group 3 through Group 8 is not being pedantic; the machines are not interchangeable and neither are the rates.
Two groups on one crew is normal
A crew running an excavator and a small roller often straddles two groups. Both rates carry, split by the hours each machine needs, rather than the higher rate being spread across the crew for safety.
Laborers split by task group
BY TASKPipelayer, mason tender, air tool operator and general laborer are separate lines at separate rates on most schedules. One blended laborer rate across a sitework package gets the bid wrong in both directions at once.
The working foreman is a classification
SUPERVISIONMany schedules carry a working foreman line with a defined premium. A non-working superintendent generally is not a laborer or mechanic on the site and belongs in general conditions.
Where the line sits changes the number twice
Put a working foreman in general conditions and the covered labor line reads light. Put a non-working superintendent on the wage line and it reads heavy. Both stay quiet until payroll is read against the estimate.
Getting it wrong costs in both directions
Over-classify and you lose the job. Under-classify and you keep it, then pay for it.
Over-classified: an inflated line in a hard-bid room
LOSE ITReaching for the higher classification on every ambiguous position feels safe. In a low-bid room where everyone read the same document, it is how a responsive bidder finishes third and never learns why.
Under-classified: the delta is owed on every hour
PAY FOR ITThe difference is owed as back wages on every hour worked, with liquidated damages on overtime violations, withholding from contract funds, civil money penalties adjusted annually for inflation, and debarment exposure of up to three years.
The arithmetic, on a mid-size job
Twelve thousand covered hours carried at a classification eight dollars an hour low is roughly $96,000 in back wages before burden, damages or penalty. On a public job that is not a rounding error, it is the margin.
Why it is decided at bid, not at payroll
Once a compliance officer is reading timecards the price is fixed and the hours are spent. The only moment the classification decision is free is the moment before the bid goes in.
What the second estimator re-checks
THE AUDITThe estimator who built it rechecks their own work, then a second estimator audits the priced package independently. On covered work that audit is pointed at what you are actually afraid of: classifications against tasks, the construction type, the ratio-capped apprentice blend, and the burden base.
Cited, never asserted
Every mapped row names the determination and the classification line behind it, so you can disagree with a row instead of a total. What no estimating desk can do is carry the classification risk for you, and a proposal offering to has not read the enforcement provisions.
Two questions that come up on every map
Asked on almost every first call, so they are answered here.
Prevailing wage vs union rate
NOT THE SAMEThe determination is a floor for that classification, in that county, for that construction type. Your collective bargaining agreement is a contract. Where the schedule was built off local agreements the two look alike; where it was not, they diverge. Send the agreement's rate sheet with the drawings and both columns run side by side, so you can see which classifications your agreement already clears.
Prevailing wage estimating for electrical contractors
CSI 26Electrical is where the map moves the number most, because fringe is a larger share of the package than in almost any other craft.
Inside wireman is not the only line you need
Sound and communication, low voltage, teledata and traffic signal work often carry their own classifications and rates. A device count priced entirely at the inside wireman rate overstates part of the scope and understates the rest.
Prevailing wage labor burden calculation, cash fringe against a bona fide plan
A Davis-Bacon labor rate calculator adds the base to the fringe and stops. What it leaves out is that cash in lieu of fringes is wages, so it drags the whole employer burden stack up with it.
| Laborer, Group 2 | $24.10 / $12.40 | $43.73 | $47.45 | +$3.72 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cement mason | $29.75 / $15.10 | $53.78 | $58.31 | +$4.53 |
| Carpenter | $32.00 / $16.00 | $57.60 | $62.40 | +$4.80 |
| Operating engineer, Group 4 | $41.20 / $19.85 | $73.41 | $79.37 | +$5.96 |
| Electrician, inside wireman | $38.50 / $22.75 | $72.80 | $79.63 | +$6.83 |
Put one covered bid through and read the labor build
Send the solicitation, the drawings and the bid date. A fixed price and a delivery date come back in writing, and nothing is billed until you approve that number.
Which wage determination prices your bid, and when it changes
A wage determination lookup for bidding is not a search, it is a chain of custody: which document, which modification, which construction type, and what happens to all three between advertisement and award.
Does the determination in the bid documents or the one on SAM.gov control?
The one incorporated into the solicitation, as amended by addenda. Pull the published version anyway and check the modification number and publication date against what the agency attached. If they disagree, ask the contracting officer in writing before bid. Price to the solicitation, then record what you priced.
What is the difference between a general and a project wage determination?
A general determination covers a county and a construction type for anyone who needs it and stays in force with periodic modifications. A project determination is issued at an agency's request for one specific project where no general determination fits, and it applies to that project alone with its own expiration.
When does a revised determination still apply to your bid?
A revision published ten or more calendar days before bid opening applies. Inside ten days it still applies unless the agency documents a finding there is not reasonable time to notify bidders. After opening, a properly applied determination is not modified except to correct an inadvertent clerical error, and if award slips past ninety days, the revision applies.
SCA vs Davis-Bacon: which one is your contract?
Davis-Bacon covers contracts for construction, alteration or repair over $2,000 and uses construction determinations. The Service Contract Act covers contracts whose principal purpose is furnishing services, generally over $2,500, using SCA determinations and the Directory of Occupations. Operations and maintenance work straddles the line, and a mixed contract can carry both.
How does a rate end up on the determination in the first place?
Under the rule published on 23 August 2023, the Wage and Hour Division restored a three-step method: a rate paid to a majority in that classification prevails; failing a majority, a rate paid to at least 30% prevails; only if neither exists is a weighted average used. Provisions of that rule have been litigated since, so treat none of it as settled.
Building, Residential, Highway, Heavy, and jobs that need two
The same craft in the same county carries four different rates depending on which construction type the determination was pulled under. Picking the wrong one is the largest single-decision error available on a covered bid.
| Building | Structures sheltering people, machinery or supplies | Site utilities outside the building line | $39.85 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | Single family and apartments up to four stories | A fifth story or a podium pushes it to Building | $28.65 |
| Highway | Roads, streets, runways and parking areas not incidental | A parking lot treated as incidental when it is not | $38.90 |
| Heavy | What is not Building, Residential or Highway | Used as a default because nothing else fits | $40.75 |
| Two on one contract | A distinct portion of work priced on its own type | One type spread across the whole contract | Both, split by portion |
Apprentice ratios cap the saving, they do not create it
Every contractor bidding covered work eventually asks whether apprentices bring the labor line down. They can, inside a ceiling somebody else sets, and the ceiling is enforced day by day rather than averaged over the job.
What the apprentice rate actually requires
Three conditions, and the estimate respects all three or the saving is imaginary.
Individually registered, or it is not an apprentice rate
REGISTEREDOnly a worker individually registered in a program approved by the Office of Apprenticeship or a recognized State Apprenticeship Agency may be paid the apprentice rate. Anyone else on the crew is owed the determination rate for the classification of work they actually perform, whatever your payroll calls them.
What the estimate assumes about your program
The sheet names the program and the ratio it was built against. Without a registered program on bid day the row prices at the journey rate and says so, rather than carrying a saving you cannot legally take.
The ratio is set by the program, not by you
THE CEILINGThere is no universal apprentice ratio. Each registered program sets its own, commonly one apprentice to one journeyworker or one to three, measured against journeyworkers actually on site.
Enforced day by day, not averaged over the job
Hours over the allowed ratio on any given day are owed at the full journey rate. An estimate that blends apprentices across the whole duration reads light on exactly the weeks the crew ramps up.
Where the blend actually lands
At one to three, at most a quarter of that classification's hours can carry the apprentice rate, and only when three journeyworkers are genuinely on site. The sheet shows the capped percentage, not the aspirational one.
Apprentice fringe often does not step down
THE CATCHThe apprentice wage percentage comes from the program schedule for that period of training. The fringe frequently does not step down with it and is owed at the full journey amount, which is why the saving is smaller than a percentage of the whole package suggests.
IRA prevailing wage and apprenticeship estimating
Solar, storage, EV charging and other clean energy work where the credit itself turns on labor.
The labor hours requirement
15%For facilities beginning construction in 2024 or later, qualified apprentices must perform at least 15% of total labor hours of construction, alteration or repair, counting contractors and subcontractors alike.
Why it belongs in the estimate
A percentage of total labor hours is an estimating output. If the bid does not carry enough apprentice hours to clear it, the fix has a price at bid stage or it has no price until the credit is at risk.
The ratio requirement
DAILYEach registered program's ratio still governs on every day the apprentice works, so the 15% has to be reached inside the ceiling rather than by stacking apprentices onto a thin crew.
The participation requirement
4 OR MOREA taxpayer, contractor or subcontractor employing four or more individuals to perform construction on the facility must employ at least one qualified apprentice. On a small specialty package that single line decides crew composition before any rate is applied.
When your scope has no classification, SF-1444 and the placeholder
Some scopes have no line on the determination at all. The crew still has to be paid, the bid still has to carry a number, and the number has to survive being looked at later.
A determination lists the classifications found prevailing in that county for that construction type. It will not list a craft nobody reported. Solar racking installers on a Heavy schedule, a fiber splicer on a Building schedule, cathodic protection work on a Highway schedule: the line you need is simply absent. Treating the nearest available classification as close enough is how a bid ends up defending a rate it never actually chose.
The mechanism is a conformance request on Standard Form 1444, running from the contractor through the contracting officer to the Wage and Hour Division after award. The tests are that the work is not performed by any classification already in the determination, that the classification is used in the area by the construction industry, and that the proposed rate bears a reasonable relationship to rates already on the schedule. Job definitions are compared on tasks required, not on the title you give the position.
That process runs after award and your bid is due before it, so the estimating job is different: identify conformance candidates while the drawings are open, price a documented placeholder against the most closely related classifications on the schedule, and write the reasoning onto the assumptions sheet. If the conformed rate later lands above the placeholder, you hold a dated record of what you priced and why, which is the difference between a conversation and an argument.
What this desk will not do is file the request, predict approval, or promise a rate. Those sit with you, your contracting officer and the Wage and Hour Division. You get the candidate list, the comparison, the priced placeholder and the exposure if it moves. Anyone guaranteeing a conformed rate before it is submitted is describing a decision they do not control.
State prevailing wage is a different document, not a different number
The complaint that a remote estimator cannot know your state is fair, so here is method instead of a boast. State schedules are structured differently from federal determinations, and the differences live in the footnotes.
California: DIR determinations
Per-craft determinations from the Department of Industrial Relations, with most of the money below the rate.
The footnotes carry the adders
READ BELOWTravel and subsistence, shift differential and zone pay sit in the determination's own footnotes rather than in the headline rate. Zone pay runs from a defined reference point, so the job address sets the adder.
Predetermined increases carry a marker
A double asterisk after the expiration date means scheduled increases are published. Missing that marker on a two-year job is how a labor line ends up built entirely at year-one rates.
Registration and apprentice filings are a cost
DIRDIR contractor registration applies to primes and subs alike, and the apprenticeship filings, DAS 140 and DAS 142, take real hours from real people. Those hours belong on the compliance cost line, not inside somebody's overhead.
New York: Article 8 and supplements
Labor Law section 220 work, where the vocabulary itself is different.
It is called supplements, not fringe
ARTICLE 8The New York schedule lists a wage and a supplements figure. Reading supplements as though it were a federal fringe, and applying federal habits to it, is the fastest way to signal you have not priced in the state before.
The annual cycle moves rates mid-job
Schedules run on an annual cycle and rates change during the term of most projects, so a duration crossing the cycle date needs its hours split rather than priced flat.
New York City reads off a separate schedule
City work runs on the Comptroller's schedule rather than the state Department of Labor schedule. Same craft, two documents, and the estimate names which one it used.
Washington: L&I rates, intents and affidavits
Rates published with scope-of-work descriptions, and paperwork bracketing the job at both ends.
The scope descriptions do the mapping work for you
L&IWashington publishes a scope of work description for each trade beside the rate, making the tasks-not-titles rule explicit in the document itself. The clearest state schedule to map against, and the map still comes back marked for your review.
Intent before, affidavit after
A Statement of Intent to Pay Prevailing Wages before the work and an Affidavit of Wages Paid after it, under RCW 39.12.040. Both are filings you make, both cost hours, and both are priced rather than assumed free.
Little Davis-Bacon act states, and the higher-of-two rule
Thresholds vary, the map moves, and on federally assisted work both documents apply.
Thresholds move, so we read yours rather than recite a number
THRESHOLDSState prevailing wage statutes, often called little Davis-Bacon acts, differ in what they cover and at what contract value. Michigan's was reinstated effective 13 February 2024 at a $50,000 threshold; Virginia's took effect 1 May 2021 at $250,000. That landscape changes, which is why no count of states appears here.
When federal and state both apply, the higher governs
LINE BY LINEOn a state or local project carrying federal assistance both documents are live and the higher rate governs, compared classification by classification rather than in total.
This is where the hours actually go
Two schedules read line by line, with a crosswalk between them because the documents rarely use the same names. It is slow and unglamorous, and it is the most common reason a covered bid gets sent to an outside desk.
Coverage follows the money, not the deed
RELATED ACTSMore than sixty statutes, the Davis-Bacon Related Acts, extend prevailing wage requirements to state, local and privately owned projects receiving federal assistance: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act work, Inflation Reduction Act work, CHIPS work, HUD programs, state revolving fund water and wastewater projects, transit and aviation pass-throughs. Owners are routinely surprised, and so are their subs.
Free determination read and a first-pass classification map
Send the solicitation. Back comes the determination number, modification number and construction type we read it as, plus a draft map of your crew positions, every row cited and every row yours to reject.
The compliance cost line, itemized and visible
Running a covered job costs money that has nothing to do with the wage rate. It usually disappears into overhead, which means it is invisible on a bid where margin is already thin. Here it is a line you can argue with.
Predetermined increases, escalated against your own schedule
A twenty-six month job priced entirely at year-one rates is underbid, and nothing in the workbook will show it. Published increases have to meet your own construction duration month by month.
Find the increases before you price anything
Lay the covered hours against your own duration
Apply each increase from its own effective date
Re-run it when the duration moves
What the prevailing wage bid estimate looks like, tab by tab
If the last outsourced estimate you bought turned out to be quantities with national average pricing stapled on, no description of this one will fix that. So here is the tab structure, published rather than described.
The workbook, tab by tab
Editable Excel or CSV, unlocked, in your template if you send one.
The determination record
TAB 1Determination number, modification number, publication date, county and construction type, plus the solicitation and addendum numbers priced against. The first thing a reviewer opens.
The classification map
TAB 2Every crew position on one side, the classification line it maps to on the other, the tasks that drove the mapping in between, and a citation back to the line it came from.
Every row marked as yours to confirm
The map is a first pass built from the documents in front of us. Rows you disagree with get changed and the labor line recalculates. We do not certify the map and we do not rule on it.
The loaded rate build
TAB 3Basic hourly rate, fringe, the plan and cash split, then each burden component computed against the wage portion, ending in a loaded rate per classification under both fringe scenarios.
Your burden rates, not ours
Send your SUTA rate, workers' compensation class codes and general liability basis and they go in. Send nothing and the sheet carries stated placeholders that say plainly they are placeholders.
The labor line by CSI division
TAB 4Hours by activity, classification and division, extended at the loaded rate and rolled to CSI 01-49 so it sits beside material and equipment in the shape your cost system expects.
The compliance cost line
TAB 5Every item from the compliance section as its own row with its own basis and hours, so it can be argued down, argued up or deleted rather than distrusted as a lump.
Assumptions, inclusions and exclusions
TAB 6Written before delivery, never reconstructed after a dispute. It names the determination, the construction type, the fringe scenario priced, the apprentice ratio assumed, every conformance placeholder and every question the documents did not answer.
Structured for the payroll clerk who inherits it
Classification rows carry the determination classification title verbatim rather than your internal trade name, so whoever eventually types the payroll reads the same words the schedule uses. That is a formatting decision, and it is the only claim made about payroll here.
What ships beside the workbook
Three more things, and one you can read before sending anything.
Color-coded marked-up sheets
PDFThe quantities under the hours are measured off your drawings and marked on them, so a labor figure traces back through hours and production rate to a place on a sheet rather than stopping at a total.
The two-column delta
ON ASKThe same scope priced at your own shop rates beside the determination, by division, with the premium shown as a percentage. Ask at upload and it comes with the package.
The rest of the estimate around the labor line
FULL BUILDMaterial, equipment, general conditions, overhead and profit are built as they are on any priced package here, with RSMeans and the National Construction Estimator as the material and productivity baselines. The determination supplies the wage and overrides the database labor rate, classification by classification.
Construction estimating servicesSee a delivered package first
FREEA delivered package with the project details stripped out. Open the classification map, pick a row, and see whether you can trace it to a determination line and a set of tasks in under a minute. If you cannot, the file has failed.
See sample deliverablesWhat the file is not, and what we will not do
The short list, so nobody buys this expecting something else.
It is not a payroll product
NOT USWe do not prepare, file, review or certify certified payroll, Form WH-347, Statements of Compliance, DAS 140 or DAS 142, Washington Intents or Affidavits, and we do not enter data into any compliance portal. The estimate is structured so your people can, and that is the whole of it.
It is not a coverage ruling
NOT USWhether Davis-Bacon or a state act applies is driven by the funding and the solicitation, and the contracting agency controls it. We flag what the documents indicate and price it. A page that tells you it can rule is selling you something.
It is not a conformance filing
NOT USCandidates are identified and priced as documented placeholders. The SF-1444 goes from you, through your contracting officer, to the Wage and Hour Division. Nobody outside that chain decides the rate.
It is not an indemnity
NOT USIf the classification decision goes wrong, the back wages are yours. What you get is a cited map, a second estimator who re-reads it, a written record of what was priced, and revisions on unchanged scope if you want a row rerun.
The same scope priced twice, your shop rate against the determination
Your loaded rates are right for your work and wrong for this document, and the gap is not one percentage you can apply to the labor total. It moves by division, and knowing which divisions is a go or no-go decision.
| 03 Concrete | 3,140 | $52.10 | $71.90 | +38% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04 Masonry | 1,020 | $49.75 | $66.40 | +33% |
| 05 Metals | 860 | $57.30 | $78.20 | +36% |
| 09 Finishes | 2,410 | $44.60 | $61.05 | +37% |
| 22-23 Mechanical | 1,980 | $58.90 | $84.35 | +43% |
| 26 Electrical | 2,260 | $56.40 | $82.15 | +46% |
| 31 Earthwork | 1,290 | $50.20 | $73.55 | +47% |
| All divisions | 12,960 | $679,900 total | $955,400 total | +41% |
Three or more covered bids a month changes the arithmetic
The monthly partnership runs a priority queue with unlimited revisions and addenda included, and your classification maps carry forward instead of being rebuilt every bid.
Outsourced prevailing wage estimator, per bid, monthly or dedicated
An outsourced prevailing wage estimator is bought in one of three shapes, and there is a fourth answer that is to not buy at all. Public work is low margin, so the arithmetic is stated rather than implied.
Per bid, on a fixed quote
Send the solicitation and the drawings. One fixed price and one delivery date come back in writing, and delivery runs 24-96 hours from your approval, scheduled against the advertised bid date. Covered work has one advantage here: the date is published at advertisement, so documents reach us with room.
Monthly partnership
For shops running three or more covered bids a month: a priority queue, unlimited revisions and addenda included. That matters more here than anywhere else, because a modification can land inside the last ten days before bid opening, and a modification is a reprice rather than a rounding.
Dedicated estimator
One estimator on your work, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in your templates and your burden rates. Continuity is worth more on covered work than usual: by the tenth job they know your registered programs, your ratios, your workers' compensation class codes and the counties you bid.
Davis-Bacon estimate for subcontractors
Specialty subs bidding to a GC on covered work usually need one or two classifications priced properly, not a whole building. Name the trades and the quote covers those and nothing else. Electrical, mechanical and sitework subs order this most, because those crafts split across the most lines.
When to keep this in house
Do not buy this if the covered scope is one classification and a few hundred hours in a county you bid every month, if your estimator already maintains a live map for that schedule, or if what you actually want is somebody to tell you whether the job is covered. Nobody outside the contracting agency can answer that last one.
Prevailing wage questions, answered straight
What contractors ask before they send a covered solicitation over.
Building the number
Which document controls
Fringe and overtime
Edge cases
Working with us
Send the solicitation and get
a fixed quote
Attach the determination or the solicitation it sits in, the drawings and the bid date. An estimator reads the document, scopes the covered work and prices it in writing, and nothing is billed until you approve that number.