Trimming the Huge Cost of Davis-Bacon


 

Publication Date: December 1983

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Peter G. Germanis

Research Area: Labor

Keywords: Labor

Type: Report

Abstract:

The Davis-Bacon Act is justified on neither efficiency nor equity grounds. It distorts the labor market by imposing a wage floor on federal construction contracts; it increases unemployment in the construction industry; it boosts costs to the taxpayer; and it prices lower-skilled workers--most notably nonunion and minority workers--out of the market.