Sponsors
Introduced November 3, 2025 by Jerry Moran · Last progress November 3, 2025
The bill trades stronger, more consistent federal flexibility and potentially lower construction costs and faster housing delivery for reduced Davis‑Bacon protections, greater legal and local‑market uncertainty, and risks of lower pay and standards for construction workers and some communities.
Homeowners, renters, developers, and taxpayers: Projects tied to HUD/FHA and other federal assistance can face lower construction labor costs and faster completion because the bill reduces or removes automatic Davis‑Bacon prevailing‑wage requirements and streamlines wage determinations.
State, local, and federal agencies, nonprofits, and project sponsors: The bill reduces administrative steps and compliance paperwork (removing mandatory DOL determinations and the statutory hook to Davis‑Bacon), giving HUD more flexibility to set contracting/funding terms and simplifying project administration.
Construction workers and employers: Using BLS data, MSAs or Secretary‑designated geographic groupings, and broader participation by union and non‑union firms can produce more objective and geographically representative prevailing‑wage determinations and creates an accountable one‑year review timeline for survey methodology.
Construction workers (especially skilled trades): Many could lose Davis‑Bacon prevailing‑wage protections across HUD‑insured and federally assisted housing projects, producing lower pay and reduced earnings for workers.
Federal, state, and local agencies, contractors, and workers: Removing the Secretary of Labor's wage‑determination role and changing geographic/grouping rules increases legal uncertainty and litigation risk, which could delay projects and raise administrative/legal costs.
Local communities, taxpayers, and project owners: Relying on broader MSA or national BLS data risks undercounting local pay variation, producing wage rates that don't reflect local markets and potentially causing labor shortages, lower workmanship, safety risks, or higher long‑term maintenance costs.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Alters federal prevailing‑wage rules for many housing programs, removes explicit Davis‑Bacon references in several housing laws, and requires DOL to review survey methods and form a working group.
Changes how the federal government sets prevailing wages for many affordable housing projects by narrowing references to the Davis‑Bacon Act, allowing different geographic groupings for wage surveys, and requiring the Labor Department to revise wage survey methods. It also creates a short‑term DOL working group (with HUD input and nonfederal members) to recommend further updates, streamlining options for certain affordable housing construction, and possible use of Bureau of Labor Statistics data instead of voluntary employer surveys. The bill amends multiple housing statutes to remove or alter language that tied wage rates to Davis‑Bacon determinations, limits issuance of multiple wage rate determinations for certain federal housing programs to a single determination that reflects the project's residential character, and sets deadlines for reviews and a report to Congress.