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
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 |
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 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.