Only $10 billion???
Oh, they must mean per day.
Just about every metropolitan construction project in the country is based on “prevailing wages”, union speak for their higher wage level.
We pay our guys about 20% more than the journeyman scale for their union counterparts.
Even so, we do not qualify for “prevailing wage” here in Illinois. To qualify, you must open your books to the state for state contracts. We used to qualify, but a few years ago, they decided that since we offered a 401 and not a pension plan, we were no longer paying prevailing wage.
You jump over the bars they set, and the union just goes and raises the bar. Never mind our guys make more per year than their union counterparts by far, according to the state (and some of our guys who have just voted to go union), they are being treated like Chinese slave labor.
Here in Illinois it is a rigged game. It has nothing to do with “prevailing wage” it has all to do with paying union dues to the D party.