Prevailing Wage Calculator

Base Hourly Wage feeds Straight-Time Earnings, Overtime Premium, Payroll Taxes, and Workers' Comp -- all four are computed from base wage earnings. Fringe Benefits only feeds Total Fringes, since payroll taxes and workers' comp in this calculator apply to the base wage portion alone, not the fringe portion. So the same percentage increase in Base Hourly Wage moves Total Cost / Worker through more channels than an equal increase in Fringe Benefits.

Overtime Premium is specifically the extra 0.5x paid on Base Hourly Wage for Overtime Hours -- standard time-and-a-half treatment. Total Fringes, by contrast, is Fringe Benefits per hour multiplied by ALL hours worked (straight-time plus overtime) at a flat straight-time rate, with no 1.5x multiplier. This matches how the U.S. Department of Labor's Davis-Bacon and Related Acts guidance (Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet #66E) describes fringe benefit treatment: fringes must be paid for every hour worked, overtime included, but the FLSA's overtime premium applies only to cash wages, not to cash paid in lieu of a fringe benefit contribution.

No -- both describe the fully burdened cost of employing a single worker at the entered wage, fringe, and hours, and neither references Number of Workers in its calculation. Number of Workers only scales Total Cost / Worker up into Total Labor Cost, the project-wide total for the whole crew, so changing crew size moves Total Labor Cost while leaving the per-worker figures completely unchanged.

Both Payroll Taxes and Workers' Comp are calculated as a percentage of base wage earnings only (straight-time plus overtime-adjusted base pay) in this calculator, never against the fringe benefit portion. So raising Fringe Benefits ($/hr) increases Total Fringes and, through it, Total Cost / Worker, but leaves the Payroll Taxes ($) and Workers' Comp ($) line items completely unchanged.