The Lawmakers

As noted in previous installments of this column, government programs that give rise to problems instead of curing them are legion. Few, however, are so manifestly counterproductive as the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.

This is a piece of labor legislation adopted in the trough of the Depression for the purpose of deciding wage rates on federal construction projects—a notion since extended to building indirectly supported by the Federal Government, and also by the states. The Act requires the Secretary of Labor to determine that workers on such projects are paid the “prevailing” wage provided to “corresponding classes of laborers and mechanics employed on projects of a character similar to the contract work in the city, town, village, or other civil subdivision of the state in which the work is to be performed.”

MS

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M. Stanton Evans

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As noted in previous installments of this column, government programs that give rise to problems instead of curing them are legion. Few, however, are so manifestly counterproductive as the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.

This is a piece of labor legislation adopted in the trough of the Depression for the purpose of deciding wage rates on federal construction projects—a notion since extended to building indirectly supported by the Federal Government, and also by the states. The Act requires the Secretary of Labor to determine that workers on such projects are paid the “prevailing” wage provided to “corresponding classes of laborers and mechanics employed on projects of a character similar to the contract work in the city, town, village, or other civil subdivision of the state in which the work is to be performed.”