How to read a Davis-Bacon wage determination

It's the federal list of minimum pay for construction workers on a covered contract. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division sets the rates, and the regulations define a general wage determination as "a list of wage and fringe benefit rates determined to be prevailing for various classifications of laborers or mechanics for specified type(s) of construction in a given area" (29 CFR 1.5(a)). An agency can also ask for a project wage determination written for one job.

The determinations are published on SAM.gov, which DOL describes as "a single location" for contracting officers to get them; it adds that "the website is available to the general public as well" (DOL, Davis-Bacon and Related Acts). A general wage determination has no end date: it "remains valid until revised, superseded, or canceled" (29 CFR 1.6(a)(2)(i)). The contractor has to post it, with the Davis-Bacon poster, at the site of the work "in a prominent and accessible place" (29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(i)).

The modification in your contract is usually the one that was current when the contract was awarded, and it stays for the life of the contract. The rules for that, including the 10-day cutoff before a bid opening, are in which Davis-Bacon wage determination applies. Every 2026 modification for Texas is in the Texas Davis-Bacon change log.

"Rates" is the basic hourly rate, the cash part of the wage. "Fringes" is the hourly amount for benefits. The contractor can pay the fringe amount into bona fide plans such as health or pension, as extra cash, or a mix, and the fringe benefits guide covers how credit is figured. A fringe of 0.00 means no fringe was found prevailing, and 26 of the 57 rate lines on TX20260253 show one.

The gap between the union rows and the survey row is wide: $49.21 for an electrician against $11.76 for a common laborer. The laborer rate comes from a survey completed in July 2014, and it's below the $13.65 floor that Executive Order 13658 sets for some contracts (see the notes below). The site's Harris County electrician page lists the rate on all four Harris County determinations, and the pay check runs a week of hours against it.

The regulations define the prevailing wage in three steps (29 CFR 1.2): the wage paid to a majority of workers in the classification; if none, "the wage paid to the greatest number, provided that such greatest number constitutes at least 30 percent of those employed"; and if no wage reaches 30 percent, an average "weighted by the total employed in the classification."

The 30 percent step came back with the 2023 final rule. Before it, a rate had to be paid to a majority or the weighted average was used, and DOL wrote that it "returns instead to the 'three-step' method that was in effect before 1983" (88 FR 57526). The new methodology "may be applied only to wage determination revisions completed by the Department on or after October 23, 2023," so a survey rate like SUTX2014-029 still reflects the old method.

The rule also lets DOL update survey rates between surveys using the Employment Cost Index. Those rates "may be adjusted based on ECI data no more frequently than once every 3 years, and no sooner than 3 years after the date of the rate's publication" (29 CFR 1.6(c)(1)). One Harris County determination already shows it. Flood control determination TX20260034 says its "non-collectively bargained prevailing wage and fringe benefits rates within this general wage determination were revised pursuant to 29 CFR 1.6(c)(1) on 02/07/2025."