The Biden administration is proposing changes designed to push up wages for workers at federally-funded construction projects such as interstates.
The proposal would rewrite the rules around the Davis-Bacon Act, a 90-year-old law that applies to government contractors, in an attempt to better account for the increased earnings of construction workers over time, officials said. Many of the changes would alter a 1983 overhaul, enacted under the Reagan administration.
Under the law, federal contractors must pay the same wage that local workers get for similar types of construction work. The Labor Department surveys contractors around the country and publishes more than 100,000 prevailing wage rates for every type of construction work across counties in the U.S.
It can take several years to complete a survey, according to a 2019…
