School Project Data Shows the Law Boosts Local Hiring and Has No Effect on Construction Costs
Date: July 16, 2018
Author: Frank Manzo IV
St. Paul: In the wake of Michigan’s controversial decision to repeal its prevailing wage law, new research shows that Minnesota’s prevailing wage law boosts the economy by almost a billion dollars every year, creates 7,200 jobs, strengthens apprenticeship programs, increases local hiring by 10%, and has no significant effect on the overall cost of publicly-funded construction projects. The research was completed by the Midwest Economic Policy Institute and University of Colorado State University-Pueblo economist Dr. Kevin Duncan.
“This study brings important, new evidence that Minnesota’s prevailing wage law maintains wages and benefits for Minnesota’s construction workers, reducing their need for public safety programs and helping to keep these working families in the middle class, and it does this without a detectable impact on public construction costs,” said University of Minnesota labor economist Dr. Aaron Soujourner. Soujourner is a former economic adviser to President Trump and President Obama who performed a peer review of the research.
Prevailing wage functions as a local minimum wage for different types of skilled construction work. It is typically applied to publicly-funded projects like roads, bridges, and schools, and is based on what skilled craft workers in the community are most often paid for comparable work. The state’s average full-time, blue-collar construction worker currently earns about $48,000 per year.
“Prevailing wage is a win-win-win for Minnesota taxpayers, the state’s economy, and the construction industry,” said study co-author and Colorado State University-Pueblo economist Kevin Duncan. “While the data consistently shows that overall project costs and bid competition are not affected by the law, its impacts on wages, local hiring, welfare reliance, workforce productivity, and the overall stability of the labor market are especially significant.”
The study analyzed more than 600 winning bids for school construction projects in the Twin Cities region between 2015 and 2017. While the majority of bids did not include prevailing wages, there was no statistically significant difference in the average total cost of prevailing wage bids and non-prevailing wage bids. However, prevailing wage bids utilized 10% more local subcontractors.
“In terms of project costs and local hiring, the new data out of Minnesota mirrors what’s been seen in other states,” said study co-author and Midwest Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Frank Manzo IV. “A repeal of Minnesota’s prevailing wage law would not save money, but it would export more tax dollars to businesses from out of town.”