Davis-Bacon vs California prevailing wage

Both are prevailing wage laws, and both set a minimum hourly wage plus fringe benefits for construction workers on public projects. They come from different governments and are run by different agencies. The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts are federal. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division sets the rates and publishes them on SAM.gov, and the Act covers contractors and subcontractors "performing on federally funded or assisted contracts in excess of $2,000" for building or public works (DOL, Davis-Bacon and Related Acts).

California's law is in the Labor Code. Section 1771 requires the general prevailing rate for public works projects over $1,000 (Labor Code 1771). The rates come from the Director of Industrial Relations, who issues general determinations twice a year, on February 22 and August 22 (DIR FAQ, Q3). People often say "prevailing wage" for both, so the funding source and who runs the project decide which one a contract means.

The Labor Commissioner's Public Works Manual (October 2023, section 2.5.2) puts the same rule this way: "State prevailing wage rates when higher are required whenever federally funded or assisted projects are controlled or carried out by California awarding bodies of any sort," citing 8 CCR 16001(b) and Southern Cal. Labor Management Committee v. Aubry (1997). Section 4.2.2.2 applies it to mixed-funding projects too: "the application of state prevailing wage rates when higher is required."

A city repaving a road with a federal grant sits in the third row, and its contractors need the federal wage determination in the contract and DIR's rates beside it.

In all five rows the DIR total is higher, by between $2.64 (inside wireman) and $16.64 (heavy and highway carpenter). The electrician row is the closest case because both list the same $58.95 base (the federal identifier ELEC0569 is the electricians' Local 569 rate, per the key at the end of the federal document). The federal fringe is one number, $18.85. DIR itemizes the employer payments and then adds 3% of the base for the National Employees Benefit Board under its footnote M, which brings the DIR total to $80.44.

Part of the spread is timing. Each federal rate carries the effective date of the union rate it was taken from, and those dates run from January to September 2025. DIR's rates were issued in August 2026. SAM.gov has also posted a notice that "updating collectively bargained wage rates on wage determinations is delayed at this time" (SAM.gov wage determinations). This table is one county on one date. A federal rate can come out higher for some classification elsewhere, so the comparison has to be made line by line for the trades on your job.

The classifications don't line up exactly. Federal Laborer Group 1 lists its own set of tasks (flagman, general laborer, clean-up and others), and DIR's Group 1 job titles are listed separately in the DIR determination, so check that the work matches before you compare the numbers.

A practical difference follows from this. To price a federal job you pick the construction type first and then the classification. For a California job you pick the craft, then the county, then the Area inside the craft file. Our guide to reading a DIR determination walks through the second process on real files.

Under Davis-Bacon, a contractor can meet the rate with any mix of wage and fringe as long as the total is met. California is stricter. The Public Works Manual (section 4.2.2.2) says the state rule "restricting the reduction of the Basic Hourly Rate is distinct from the federal prevailing wage laws," and that "the Davis-Bacon Act does not prohibit the crediting of employer payments or benefit contributions towards fulfilling the hourly wage rate." On a job covered by both, the manual says contractors "must, however, continue to comply with state requirements."

The manual's own example uses a $25.00 base and $15.00 in employer payments. A contractor can pay $40.00 all in wages, or $25.00 plus $15.00 in benefits, or any mix "so long as the Basic Hourly Rate is not less than $25.00 per hour and the Total Hourly Rate meets or exceeds $40.00." The fringe benefits guide covers the narrow exceptions in Labor Code 1773.1 and 1773.8.

A federal determination lists no daily overtime rate. On a dual-coverage job in California, a tenth hour on a Tuesday is an overtime hour under Labor Code 1815, at whatever rate the DIR determination prints for it. The overtime guide works through those rates on real rows. DIR's FAQ also says that sending certified payroll to a union, a prime contractor or an awarding body "does not fulfill the requirement" to submit it to DIR, so a dual-coverage contractor files on both systems.