The Davis–Bacon Act of 1931 is a United States federal law that establishes the requirement for paying the local prevailing wages on public works projects for laborers and mechanics.

[1] The act is named after its sponsors, James J. Davis, a Senator from Pennsylvania and a former Secretary of Labor under three presidents, and Representative Robert L. Bacon of Long Island, New York.

[3]: 1 Prior to the passage of the federal Davis–Bacon Act (abbreviated DBA), other jurisdictions in the United States had passed laws that required that contractors on public works projects pay the wage that prevailed locally.

"[4][5] In 1927, a contractor employed African-American workers from Alabama to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in the district of Congressman Bacon.

[8][9] Finally, in the midst of the Great Depression, with local workers complaining losing jobs to those willing to work for lower wages, and additional complaints from Congressmen frustrated that their efforts to bring "pork barrel" projects home to their districts did not result in jobs for their constituents (and therefore political support from them),[6] the Hoover Administration requested that Congress reconsider the Act once more as a means of preventing falling wages.

[11] Unions said that the law lacked enforcement teeth, while contractors said that it was impossible to know beforehand what the prevailing wages were when submitting bids.

This was followed in 1935 with another amendment which introduced five changes: (1) The threshold for falling under the DBA requirements were lowered from $5,000 to $2,000; (2) coverage was extended to all federal contract construction, including painting and decorating; (3) the agency may withhold funds sufficient to pay underpaid workers; (4) the Comptroller General would make a list of contractors who had “disregarded their obligations to employees and subcontractors” so that they could be blacklisted from federal contracts for three years; (5) right of legal action was explicitly granted to laborers regardless of whether they had accepted wages; and (6) DBA contracts would include “the minimum wages to be paid various classes of laborers and mechanics” prior to the submission of bids by a contractor (predetermination).

The predetermination requirement set up a mechanism to collect and disseminate appropriate prevailing wage data prior to issuing proposal requests for federal contract bids.

[8] In the 1950s, questions were raised about which agencies should control which provisions and whether the new interstate highway acts should specifically reference DBA requirements.

[7] In the 1960s, the passage of the Walsh–Healey and McNamara–O'Hara Service Contract Acts confused the situation further, as there were pay differences between manufacturing and construction, with contractors and unions having clear but opposite preferences.

After nearly 50 years, the Department of Labor has not developed an effective program to issue and maintain current and accurate wage determinations; it may be impractical to ever do so.

The act results in unnecessary construction and administrative costs of several hundred million dollars annually (if the construction projects reviewed by GAO are representative) and has an inflationary effect on the areas covered by inaccurate wage rates and the economy as a whole.This publication reflected an ongoing political debate.

[7] In November 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Streamlining Claims Processing for Federal Contractor Employees Act into law.

[7] Within these areas are further classifications, including craft positions such as plumber, carpenter, cement mason/concrete finisher, electrician, insulator, laborer, lather, painter, power equipment operator, roofer, sheet metal worker, truck driver, and welder.

For example, if it is determined that relevant projects have not been completed recently, or that the area is inadequately represented, WHD may conduct telephone surveys to increase the robustness of data.

[7] Those areas, broadly considered, include (a) data collection and accuracy issues resulting from the way regulations have been formulated and administered, (b) the increased cost of federal construction projects, and (c) claims that the law is racist in conception and effect.

Also, employers and third parties who may have had a stake in the outcome of wage decisions were afforded an opportunity to submit erroneous data that may have influenced the survey results.”[27] In addition to claims of bias, researchers and investigators have found evidence of fraud.

We also noticed what appears to be a pattern in the reporting method on many of the wage survey forms, as our visual presentation will show here today.

[12] At the time that Davis–Bacon Act was passed, legal scholars were divided on the question about whether the federal government could regulate labor costs and conditions.

[12] Finally, some detractors have pointed out that the WHD collects the same data as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but does it with inferior methods.

One stated purpose of this is to prevent a "race to the bottom" in which employers may use migrant and other low-skill, unemployed workers to perform the work at low costs.

In addition, companies that participate in federal construction jobs are required to collect data and report regularly.

[30] Under this assumption, a union journeyman would be worth the additional money because he works faster, more accurately, and with less supervision than an inexperienced worker.

[33] This brought about or accelerated the Great Migration in which black (and white) laborers from the South came North in search of better pay and opportunity.

[33] In that context, the protests against the Long Island hospital built with migrant labor can be seen for what they were: resistance outside of the Jim Crow South to black workers.

[8] During this time, complaints about black workers taking federal construction jobs appear sporadically through the legislation history of both prior bills that anticipated Davis–Bacon, and Davis–Bacon itself.

[6][36] On the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Upshaw said: "You will not think that a southern man is more than human if he smiles over the fact of your reaction to that real problem you are confronted with in any community with a superabundance or large aggregation of negro labor.

Congressman John J. Cochran (D-Missouri) reported that he had "received numerous complaints in recent months about southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South".

[43]: 113  Therefore, the requirements and mechanisms of the Davis–Bacon Act necessarily prevented black laborers from participating in federally funded construction projects.

“According to a study on youth and minority employment published by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee on July 6, 1977, Davis–Bacon wage requirements discourage nonunion contractors from bidding on Federal construction work, thus harming minority and young workers who are more likely to work in the nonunionized sector of the construction industry.”[12] Thus, even if racism was not the intent, racial discrimination was a result of the law initially.