What do you mean by prevailing wage? In CA, there is such a thing as a prevailing wage that a contractor/employer is REQUIRED to pay his employees when working on a government job that costs over, I believe, $10,000. That pretty much means every government job. I'm not sure about electrical, but on the plumbing jobs my dad has been doing on the coast, he's been required to pay $40-something an hour. He told me the wage for one area was around $60. Pretty darn good money for a person who doesn't have to worry about anything other than showing up for work.
