Source: by Nooshin Mahalia, July 8, 2008 | EPI Briefing Paper #215
Executive summary
For over a hundred years, many state and local governments have required that companies that want to contract for public works must pay their workers a wage that reflects wages commonly received in the area. The federal government adopted its own prevailing wage requirement with the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. At the heart of these laws is the conviction that government, as a major buyer in the construction sector, should not act to drive down wages. Indeed, the civic-minded reformers who initially pushed for prevailing wage laws believed that the government ought to use its buying power to enhance the welfare of workers and their families.
