DOL raises minimum wage for federal contract workers

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $15.00 per hour on Jan. 30, 2022 – an average increase for workers of $5,228 a year.

That means construction workers, childcare, health care, and building and other service workers employed on federal contracts will receive a long overdue pay raise! In all, this minimum wage increase will affect more than 300,000 workers – 54% of which are women and 25% are workers of color.

The DOL said that this “historic federal investment in our nation’s infrastructure will create millions of new jobs in construction and related industries.”

Reasons for the increase – aside from it was long overdue – is that it:

• improves the economic security of families
• reduces poverty, and
• and makes progress toward reversing decades of income inequality.

Not to mention the fact it’ll improve morale and productivity in these jobs, which in turn leads to lower turnover and absenteeism.

Additional benefits

The rule also lends protections to federal contract workers because it:

• guarantees yearly minimum wage adjustments
• increases the pay for workers with disabilities who may otherwise earn less than the minimum wage
• makes certain tipped federal contract workers make at least 85% of the full minimum wage as their cash wage starting Jan. 1, 2023, and 100% starting Jan. 1, 2024, and
• reinstitutes minimum wage protections to those who provide recreational services on federal lands. 

As of Jan. 30, 2021, most new contracts, including renewals or extensions, will be affected by the new rule. This includes federal contract workers in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Outer Continental Shelf lands as defined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Wake Island and Johnston Island.