South Carolina Prevailing Wage

South Carolina has never enacted a state prevailing wage law, so there is no state wage schedule or certified-payroll mandate for state, county, or municipal construction. When you bid most public work in South Carolina, you price labor to competitive local market rates and your actual crew costs rather than to a government-determined rate book. This generally lets you bid leaner and simplifies estimating, because you are not building to published prevailing wages or weekly certified-payroll administration on purely state- or locally funded jobs.

The controlling exception is federal funding. Any South Carolina project funded in whole or part with federal dollars and exceeding $2,000 falls under the federal Davis-Bacon Act. On those projects you must pay the U.S. Department of Labor wage determination for the relevant county and classifications and submit weekly certified payroll (Form WH-347) to the contracting agency. Federally assisted highway, military, water/sewer, and housing work commonly carry Davis-Bacon, so confirm the funding source in the solicitation before you price labor.

The classic pitfall in a no-law state is treating every public job as wage-free and then discovering a federal nexus after award, when Davis-Bacon rates and fringes are often higher than local open-shop wages. That surprise erases margin. Before submitting a South Carolina bid, verify whether federal money is involved, pull any referenced wage determination, and include certified-payroll administration in your overhead for those jobs. Where there is no federal trigger, you can confidently bid to market rates without a state wage burden.