WH-347 Column 4: Hours Worked Each Day, Explained

What Column 4 Means

Column 4 on the January 2025 WH-347 is Hours Worked Each Day. It is a block of seven day columns covering the payroll week, and each worker gets two lines: straight time on the top line and overtime on the bottom line.

These are the hours the worker spent on this project, on the classification named in Column 3. Hours worked on other jobs do not belong here. They surface later, in the all-work gross figure in Column 7B.

Straight Time and Overtime on Separate Lines

The two-line structure is not optional formatting. It is how an investigator verifies that overtime was paid correctly. Under CWHSSA, hours over 40 in a workweek on covered contracts are paid at 1.5x the basic hourly rate (40 U.S.C. 3702(a); 29 CFR 5.5(b)(1)).

• Top line (ST): hours up to 40 for the week, day by day
• Bottom line (OT): hours beyond 40, day by day

Overtime is determined by the weekly total, not by the length of any single day. Ten hours on Monday is straight time if the week ends at 40. The eleventh hour of a 48-hour week is overtime wherever it falls.

Which Hours Belong in Column 4

• Include: all hours the worker performed covered construction work on the site of the work in that classification
• Split by classification: a worker who spends part of the week as a Laborer and part as an Operator gets a separate line for each classification, with that classification's rate in Column 6A
• Exclude: hours on other projects, and hours in a different classification (those get their own line)

Paid leave such as vacation or holiday is not time worked on the project and does not go in Column 4. Where such benefits are credited as fringes, they are handled through Column 6B.

Worked Example

A Laborer works the Main Street job Monday through Friday: 9, 9, 9, 9, and 8 hours, for 44 hours in the week.

• Straight time line: the first 40 hours, distributed across the days worked
• Overtime line: the remaining 4 hours
• Column 5 total hours: 44
• Column 6A carries the basic hourly rate; the overtime line is paid at 1.5x that rate

Fringe is owed at straight time on every hour, including the 4 overtime hours (29 CFR 5.32(a)). Our free prevailing wage calculator splits the straight time and overtime for you.

Common Column 4 Mistakes

Entering a W-4 exemption count

A leftover habit from the old form, and now simply wrong. The column holds hours. There is no withholding exemptions field anywhere on the January 2025 WH-347.

Putting all hours on the straight time line

Collapsing a 48-hour week onto one line hides the overtime premium. It is both a form error and, if the premium was not actually paid, a wage violation.

Daily overtime instead of weekly

CWHSSA overtime is based on hours over 40 in the workweek. Some state prevailing wage laws add a daily overtime rule on state-funded work; on a federal Davis-Bacon payroll, use the weekly test.

Lumping two classifications onto one line

Each classification gets its own line with its own hours and its own rate. Merging them makes it impossible to show the worker was paid the correct prevailing wage for each kind of work.

Related Columns

Column 4 feeds the total in Column 5 and the gross figures in Columns 7A and 7B, priced at the rate in Column 6A. For the whole form field by field, see our line-by-line WH-347 instructions.