Prevailing Wage for Ditch Diggers

The prevailing wage for a ditch digger in King County is $34.36 per hour. I can now testify from personal experience that they earn every penny of it. The water line to my house recently sprung a leak, something I discovered last Saturday when I opened up my $800 water/sewer bill! After getting a couple of bids from contractors to dig a 75 foot long trench and install a new pipe ($3,800 and $8,500), I decided that I could dig the trench myself. So my wife and I have been slowly chipping away at the dirt. We hope to finish up in the next few days. It's tiring work. Ditch diggers (a sub-classification of Laborers) work hard to earn the $34.36 per hour prevailing wage rate.