In the latest development with the federal contractor minimum wage, the Department of Labor finalized a five-cent increase over the previous year’s rate.
As previously reported, President Obama signed Executive Order 13658 establishing a minimum wage for federal contractors in February 2014. Effective January 1, 2015, the minimum hourly wage for workers on covered contractors was $10.10 an hour. As part of the Executive Order, however, the Secretary of Labor was authorized to make annual increases based on inflation.
As a result of this latest wage review by the DOL, the minimum wage for contract workers will increase from $10.10 to $10.15 an hour, effective January 1, 2016. (The minimum wage for tipped employees will increase, as well, to $5.85 an hour.)
The federal contractors covered by Executive Order 13658 include:
- Procurement contracts for services or construction
- Contracts for services covered by the Service Contract Act (SCA)
- Concessions contracts
- Contracts entered into with the Federal Government “in connection with Federal property or lands and related to offering services for Federal employees, their dependents, or the general public”
- Contracts where the wages of workers are governed by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the SCA or the Davis-Bacon Act
- The updated wage poster, along with the new “EEO is the Law” supplement, are available as individual, new posters for federal contractors
