Data through June 2026. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics. Rebuilt monthly.
Construction workers in the US earn an average of $41.36 an hour as of June 2026. The highest-paying state is Alaska at $54.05; the lowest is Mississippi at $31.04 — a gap of $23.01 an hour, or 74%. These are wages paid to workers, not what a contractor bills a customer, which is typically two to three times higher once insurance, overhead and profit are added.
National average hourly earnings for all construction employees, through July 2026.
| # | State | Hourly wage | vs national | 12 mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | $54.05 | +30.7% | +4.9% |
| 2 | Massachusetts | $52.32 | +26.5% | +6.8% |
| 3 | Washington | $51.49 | +24.5% | +2.7% |
| 4 | New Jersey | $50.61 | +22.4% | +5.5% |
| 5 | California | $49.47 | +19.6% | +8.3% |
| 6 | Illinois | $49.30 | +19.2% | +4.1% |
| 7 | Oregon | $48.63 | +17.6% | +6.7% |
| 8 | Rhode Island | $47.23 | +14.2% | +4.8% |
| 9 | New York | $46.87 | +13.3% | +1.1% |
| 10 | Minnesota | $44.73 | +8.1% | +1.2% |
| 11 | Nevada | $44.31 | +7.1% | +9.1% |
| 12 | Connecticut | $42.99 | +3.9% | +0.8% |
| 13 | Indiana | $42.97 | +3.9% | +12.5% |
| 14 | Pennsylvania | $42.83 | +3.6% | +6.6% |
| 15 | Wisconsin | $42.64 | +3.1% | +5.9% |
| 16 | Colorado | $42.51 | +2.8% | +3.4% |
| 17 | Ohio | $41.60 | +0.6% | +5.7% |
| 18 | Missouri | $41.11 | -0.6% | +11.0% |
| 19 | Michigan | $40.02 | -3.2% | +3.7% |
| 20 | Montana | $39.35 | -4.9% | +2.8% |
| 21 | North Dakota | $39.16 | -5.3% | +3.0% |
| 22 | Arizona | $38.66 | -6.5% | +4.0% |
| 23 | Virginia | $38.11 | -7.9% | +3.1% |
| 24 | North Carolina | $38.08 | -7.9% | +8.6% |
| 25 | Iowa | $37.57 | -9.2% | +7.4% |
| 26 | Idaho | $37.06 | -10.4% | +4.6% |
| 27 | Texas | $37.05 | -10.4% | +1.1% |
| 28 | Kansas | $36.79 | -11.0% | +5.1% |
| 29 | Wyoming | $36.56 | -11.6% | +1.8% |
| 30 | Vermont | $36.48 | -11.8% | +4.0% |
| 31 | Florida | $36.39 | -12.0% | +5.4% |
| 32 | Utah | $36.23 | -12.4% | +1.1% |
| 33 | Kentucky | $36.13 | -12.6% | +3.4% |
| 34 | Maine | $35.47 | -14.2% | +6.6% |
| 35 | Georgia | $35.36 | -14.5% | -1.1% |
| 36 | New Mexico | $34.20 | -17.3% | +3.3% |
| 37 | Alabama | $33.72 | -18.5% | +7.3% |
| 38 | Louisiana | $33.20 | -19.7% | +2.5% |
| 39 | South Carolina | $33.05 | -20.1% | -1.8% |
| 40 | Oklahoma | $33.04 | -20.1% | +7.3% |
| 41 | West Virginia | $32.33 | -21.8% | -6.6% |
| 42 | Arkansas | $31.11 | -24.8% | +5.5% |
| 43 | Mississippi | $31.04 | -25.0% | -4.4% |
43 of 51 states and DC reporting. Red indicates above the national average or rising; green below or falling. BLS does not publish a construction earnings series for 8 of them — Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee — so they are absent above rather than zero.
Materials and labour move independently. Our construction material cost index tracks what materials cost; this page tracks what the people installing them are paid. A job in Alaska and the same job in Mississippi use identical quantities of concrete and lumber, but the labour line differs by roughly 74%.
That is why a national “average cost to build a deck” figure is close to useless. Work out your quantities first with a calculator, price the materials locally, and treat labour as a separate regional variable.
Figures come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics State and Metro Area Employment, Hours, and Earnings programme, retrieved through the public BLS API. The measure is average hourly earnings of all employees in the construction sector, not seasonally adjusted.
Series follow a fixed pattern, so any state can be checked directly against BLS:
SMU<state FIPS>000002000000003 | State construction average hourly earnings |
SMU06000002000000003 | California — worked example |
CES2000000003 | National construction average hourly earnings |
This is employee wage data. It excludes self-employed tradespeople, and it is not a contractor billing rate. BLS data is a work of the US federal government and is in the public domain. This page is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
No, and the difference is large. This is the average wage paid to construction employees — what lands in a worker’s pay packet. A contractor’s billed labour rate also carries payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, liability insurance, equipment, vehicles, overhead and profit, and is commonly two to three times the underlying wage. Use this page to understand direction and regional differences, not to price a quote.
All employees in the construction sector, which spans residential and commercial building, heavy and civil engineering, and specialty trade contractors. It is a sector-wide average, so a state with a lot of large commercial work will read higher than one dominated by small residential builders. Figures are current through June 2026.
Three things dominate: cost of living, union density, and the mix of work in that state. States with strong union presence and expensive metros sit at the top; states with mostly small residential contractors sit lower. Within a state, metro rates usually run well above rural ones, and this page does not break that out.
BLS publishes state employment and earnings monthly, roughly three weeks after the month ends. This page rebuilds itself from the BLS API on a schedule, so the date above always reflects the latest release.
Yes. It is produced by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and is in the public domain. The series ID pattern is given in the methodology section so any figure can be checked directly against BLS.