Common Construction Wage: Cost of Repeal

Repealing Common Construction Wages Means Hoosier Workers Get Paid Less than Foreign
Guest Workers
Foreign Guest Workers MUST Receive Prevailing Wage
When contractors face a worker shortage, they can apply to the federal government to
temporarily bring in workers from other countries.
Known as an H-2B Visa, workers receive paperwork that lets them legally into the country to
work on the project.
The federal government requires all H-2B Visa holders to make the highest of the
prevailing wage (decided by the feds), the federal minimum wage, or the state minimum
wage. 1
The employer must pay a prevailing wage approved by the Federal Government and based on
local wage data.
Foreign guest workers must make the prevailing wage on any project (including wholly
state funded) if its the highest wage regardless of whether a state has a prevailing wage
law.2
o (repealing Indianas CCW law does not exempt foreign workers from these
provisions)
Hoosier Construction Worker Wages will Drop below Foreign Workers if Repeal CCW
Studies show that repeal of CCW will cost Hoosier workers just over $246 million in
wages, or an average of $2000 per worker per year.3
Repealing CCW is effectively a pay cut for Hoosier workers who live here, buy houses here,
support local businesses here and pay taxes here.
This pay cut WILL NOT apply to foreign guest workers.
Repeal of CCW Hurts the Entire Hoosier Economy
Repeal of CCW means a loss of almost $700 million in economic output for Indiana.4
Why? Because when wages drop and Hoosier workers are replaced by a transient workforce,
those workers return to their home state or country taking any potential local spending and
local tax revenue with them.
This is the type of program publicly advocated by organizations supporting repeal of CCW.5

(20 C.F.R. 655.10)

A more detailed summary of the H-2B Visa law can be found at http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/h2b_detail.cfm.
3
Common Sense Construction: The Economic Impacts of Indianas Common Construction Wage, Bruno, R.,
Littlehale, S., Manzo, F., June 2014.
4
Ibid.
5
http://www.abc.org/NewsMedia/Newsline/tabid/143/entryid/870/abc-outlines-features-of-a-successfulguestworker-program.aspx
2