Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage

On public work where the estimated total cost of the project is over $25,000. The Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Act defines public work as construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration and repair work other than maintenance work, done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of the funds of a public body, where the estimated cost of the total project is in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars. The Department of Labor and Industry adds the anti-splitting rule in plain words: a project may not be divided into components or separate projects to fall below the $25,000 threshold.

The public body that awarded the contract, not the state. Contractors and subcontractors performing public work submit certified payrolls to the public body, and the department instructs public bodies to require the weekly filing of certified payrolls and to make sure the prevailing wage rates were paid and the job classifications maintained before payment is made. There is no statewide upload portal to learn, which means the awarding agency's own process governs. Ask at the preconstruction meeting.

Weekly. The department's guidance to contractors is to complete and submit weekly certified payrolls to the public body, and its guidance to public bodies is to require that weekly filing before releasing payment. Where the same job also carries federal money, the federal rule of within 7 days after the regular payment date runs alongside it.

This is the costliest difference on the page. The Department of Labor and Industry states that Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage Act requires overtime for work exceeding 40 hours per workweek at one and one half times the employee's hourly regular rate, and that the regular rate includes the prevailing wage plus hourly cash paid in lieu of fringe benefits, divided by total hours worked. The federal rule generally runs the other way: 29 CFR 5.32 says the act excludes amounts paid for fringe benefits in the computation of overtime, and that a cash equivalent of prevailing fringe benefits would also be excludable in computing the regular or basic rate. That federal exclusion is not automatic, though. The same section says whether a cash payment is actually in lieu of a fringe benefit or is simply part of the straight time cash wage is a question of fact, and where it is the latter the cash is not excludable. Either way, a contractor who pays fringe in cash and computes the premium on the base rate alone on a Pennsylvania job is using the smaller of the two answers.

Take a determination of $30.00 base plus $12.00 fringe, with the fringe paid entirely in cash, and a 48 hour week. Under the federal method the overtime premium is computed on the $30.00 basic rate, so the extra half time for 8 overtime hours is 8 times $15.00, which is $120.00. Under Pennsylvania's stated method the regular rate is $30.00 plus the $12.00 cash in lieu, so the extra half time is 8 times $21.00, which is $168.00. That is $48.00 more for one worker in one week, before you multiply it by a crew and a season.

Keep all required records for at least 2 years and give Labor and Industry and the awarding public body access at reasonable hours. The department's list covers worker names, classifications, daily hours, wage rates with benefits, deductions, fringe benefit documentation and timecards. Note the two year figure: the federal Davis-Bacon retention period is three years after completion of the contract, so on a job with federal money the longer clock governs what you actually keep.

The department expects signed indentures for each apprentice and the approvals of the Pennsylvania Apprenticeship and Training Council to be maintained with your records. As on a federal job, an apprentice rate is only defensible for someone actually registered; the difference is which body registered them. If a worker cannot be tied to an indenture and an approval, the full classification rate is the safe answer.

Pennsylvania's consequences are structural rather than a per-day fine. The department lists debarment from public works projects for 3 years, payment of the wages owed, referral to the Attorney General for liquidated damages, authority to direct the public body to terminate the contractor, and potential criminal penalties. Note what that termination is: not the project ending, but you being removed from it. Three years off public work is an existential outcome for a contractor whose book is public work.

The Department of Labor and Industry, through the Bureau of Labor Law Compliance, determines prevailing wage rates for the construction industry and enforces the rates and classifications on heavy highway and building construction projects of $25,000 or more where public funds are involved. Rates are issued for the project, so the determination that governs your job is the one attached to that project's contract documents, not a general table you find online.

Whenever federal funds are in the job, yes, and then you comply with both. You pay the higher rate for each classification, you meet the weekly federal submission within 7 days after the regular payment date as well as whatever the public body requires, you keep records for the longer federal period, and you apply whichever overtime computation yields the greater payment to the worker. Do not assume one filing satisfies the other.

We do the weekly payroll math and produce the records you hand to the public body, and on federally funded work we generate the Rev. January 2025 federal WH-347 with its Statement of Compliance. To be straight with you: we do not yet compute overtime on Pennsylvania's regular rate automatically, so a contractor paying cash in lieu on a Pennsylvania job should check that premium themselves, and the state filings we offer today are California's A-1-131 and DIR eCPR XML and the Illinois CTP portal upload file. You file with the public body; we never submit anything to any agency on your behalf.