Department of Labor

In response to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division's accuracy in determining wage rates for service employees working under federal contracts totalling more than $2,500.

GAO randomly sampled 285 wage determinations out of approximately 5,300 that Labor issued between 1981 and 1985, and found that: (1) 67 percent of the determinations were active as of October 1986, and included about 31,000 rates; (2) 33 percent were primarily inactive, or in files that Labor could not locate; (3) 94 percent of the 31,000 wage rates were verifiable, while 6 percent were not because of inadequate records; (4) 98 percent of the verifiable wage rates were accurate; and (5) most of the inaccurate rates were off by 10 cents an hour or less. GAO noted that Labor plans to take steps to correct its recordkeeping problems and will eventually replace the manual system it now uses with a computerized preparation and tracking system.