As the age of the US population continues to rise – and millions of people with disabilities, additional needs and children need care – so too does the country's insatiable demand for home (.)
A How-To Guide for Strengthening State and Local Prevailing Wage Laws
Raising Standards for Government-Funded Work
December 22, 2020, 9:02 am Getty/John Moore
A custodian cleans ahead of the return of students at a school in Stamford, Connecticut, August 2020.
Julia Cusick
Introduction and summary
State and local governments spend billions of dollars each year on goods and services that are provided by private companies.
1 Yet, all too often, this spending undermines the labor standards of high-road companies that pay good wages and benefits, delivers jobs that pay poverty wages, and provides poor value to taxpayers. Policymakers can help ensure that government dollars uphold local market wages, support high-quality jobs, and deliver value to taxpayers by enacting prevailing wage laws, which require recipients of government funding to provide workers with wages and fringe benefits that are comparable to those paid to other similarly placed workers in the region.