Impact of repealing New York state's prevailing wage law on blue-collar construction workers and the local economy, 2016 data
| New York blue-collar construction | ||
|---|---|---|
| Total employment | 294,591 | |
| Average weekly earnings | $1,370.46 | |
| Average weeks worked (U.S. average) | 47 | |
| Estimated total annual earnings (in billions) | $18.975 | |
| Estimated changes if prevailing wage is repealed | ||
| Percent change in hourly wage | -2% | -4% |
| Percent change in employment | 0.28% | 0.56% |
| Change in annual earnings, across all current workers (in millions) | -$379.5 | -$759.0 |
| Annual earnings, newly hired workers (in millions) | $53.1 | $106.3 |
| Net change in annual earnings across current and new workers (in millions) | -$326.4 | -$652.7 |
Notes: Blue-collar employment is estimated to be 79 percent of total industry employment (372,900) given data from New York residents from the 2000–2016 Current Population Survey; the labor demand elasticity is -0.14.
The two data columns in the table represent the impact associated with the Kessler and Katz (2001) estimate that the repeal of a state’s prevailing wage law results in a 2 percent to 4 percent decline in the average hourly wage for its blue-collar construction workers on all projects, both public and private.
Sources: Employment and earnings data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (BLS CES); Average weeks worked comes from Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement data in the IPUMS-CPS database (Flood et al. 2017). Labor demand elasticity for construction comes from from Maiti and Indra (2016).