How to Read a Davis-Bacon Wage Determination

The number and the header

The first line is the general decision number and its date: CT20260001 05/18/2026 is Connecticut's first determination of 2026, as modified on May 18, 2026. The number is stable through the year; the date moves with each modification. A superseded number may follow, naming last year's edition. Then the state, the construction types the determination covers (one, or several in some states), and the counties it covers, listed by name.

The modification table lists every revision of this year's edition with its publication date. Modification 0 is the January publication; later modifications usually appear on Fridays. SAM.gov serves every modification of the current year, which is what the county pages here are built from, and the pages name the modification they show.

Rate blocks and their identifiers

Each block of rates starts with an identifier and a date. An identifier such as ELEC0035-001 06/01/2025 means the rates come from the electrical workers' local 35's collective bargaining agreement, effective June 1, 2025; CARP, IRON, LABO, PLUM, ENGI and the rest are other unions. An identifier starting with SU, such as SUTX2011-001, means survey rates, and its date tells you when the survey was taken; some survey rates are more than a decade old. UAVG is a union average, and a few states' blocks start with SA.

Under the identifier come the classifications, each with two columns: Rates, the basic hourly rate, and Fringes, the hourly fringe benefit amount. A fringe printed as a percentage is a share of the basic rate; a letter after it, such as +a, points to a footnote in the block, usually paid holidays or vacation.

Zones, groups, footnotes and premiums

Operating engineers and truck drivers are often paid by group, with the equipment in each group listed after the rates: Group 1 might be cranes and large excavators, Group 4 compressors and pumps. Some rates vary by zone, measured in road miles from a city or a county courthouse, with a premium per zone. Footnotes add paid holidays, vacation pay, hazardous-work premiums and shift differentials. A row's rate on this site is the basic rate printed for it; the footnote text is kept with the row and shown on the county page.

A few classifications, such as divers in California and Washington, are printed per day rather than per hour, and the determination says so in the block. The pages here label those rows per day.

The standard tail

Every determination ends the same way. Welders receive the rate for the craft whose work they are welding. A note on Executive Order 13706 explains paid sick leave for workers on covered federal contracts, and one on Executive Orders 14026 and 13658 explains the federal contractor minimum wage. Then comes the process for work not covered by any listed classification: the contractor proposes a classification and rate to the agency on form SF-1444, and the Wage and Hour Division approves or sets one. The last section describes how to request a review of a determination and how to appeal.

Which modification applies

For contracts awarded by sealed bidding, the determination in effect ten days before bid opening applies, unless the agency finds there was enough time to use a later one. For contracts awarded without bidding, it is the determination in effect on the date of award, or the start of construction if that comes first. Modifications published after that do not change the contract, except that an option-year extension of a contract takes the determination current at the extension.

So the rate on a county page today is the right starting point for a bid, and the wrong one for a contract signed last year: for that, read the determination attached to the contract.