Davis-Bacon Act: Methodological Expertise Critical for Improving Survey Quality

Abstract

Today I will discuss (1) the extent to which Labor has addressed concerns regarding the quality of the Davis-Bacon wage determination process and (2) additional issues identified by stakeholders regarding the wage determination process. My remarks are based on our recently issued report, titled Davis-Bacon Act: Methodological Changes Needed to Improve Wage Survey. In summary, we found that recent efforts to improve the Davis-Bacon wage survey have not yet addressed key issues with survey quality, such as the representativeness and sufficiency of survey data collected. Labor has made some data collection and processing changes; however, we found some surveys initiated under these changes were behind Labor's processing schedule.