WASHINGTON, Nov. 22—Associated Builders and Contractors today released the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division’s final rule increasing the minimum wage on federal contracts from $10.95 to $15 per hour beginning in early 2022, superseding a scheduled increase to $11.25 that will occur on Jan. 1.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19—Associated Builders and Contractors released the following statement on today's passage of the partisan reconciliation bill by the U.S. House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18—Associated Builders and Contractors and its chapters in Georgia and Texas today announced filings in support of pending suits by multiple states challenging President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors. ABC contends the unprecedented executive order exceeds the administration’s authority and is likely to increase costs and undermine economy and efficiency in federal contracting.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22—Associated Builders and Contractors’ Board of Directors has elected Stephanie Schmidt, president of Poole Anderson Construction, State College, Pennsylvania, as the 2022 ABC national chair of the board of directors during a meeting at the association’s annual Leadership Institute in Aventura, Florida.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18—Associated Builders and Contractors today released its inaugural Tech Report, a study of the innovative technology and tools that ABC contractor members are using on jobsites to be safer, more profitable and primed to win more work. The report was sourced from a survey conducted from March through May 2021. It details opportunities for construction contractors to improve their operations in project coordination, planning, estimating, production and scheduling.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19—The Maryland Minority Contractors Association has awarded Tia Perry, Associated Builders and Contractors’ director of inclusion, diversity and equity, its annual Professional Commitment Award. Perry was honored for her leadership connecting minority businesses with general contractors to help them win work and providing educational opportunities to minority businesses across the country.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9—Associated Builders and Contractors and its Alabama chapter today filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 11th Circuit against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for its COVID-19 vaccination and testing Emergency Temporary Standard, which applies to employers with 100 or more employees.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9—Construction input prices increased 1.5% in October, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index data released today. Nonresidential construction input prices increased 1.4% for the month.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5—Associated Builders and Contractors released the following statement on today’s passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. “Passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill creates an opportunity to effectively modernize our nation’s most critical infrastructure, and ABC and our members stand ready to do the important work to bring America’s infrastructure into the 21st century,” said Michael Bellaman, ABC president and CEO. “However, ABC remains wary of some of the bill’s exclusionary provisions and statements from the Biden administration that could restrict the eligibility of America’s workers to compete for and participate in these construction projects.

The construction industry added 44,000 jobs on net in October, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, the industry has recovered 963,000, or 86.5%, of the jobs lost during earlier stages of the pandemic.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4—Associated Builders and Contractors today released the following statement on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s issuance of its COVID-19 vaccination and testing Emergency Temporary Standard, which applies to employers with 100 or more employees as required by President Biden’s Path Out of the Pandemic COVID-19 Action Plan.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9— Associated Builders and Contractors reports today that its Construction Backlog Indicator rose to 8.1 months in October, according to an ABC member survey conducted from Oct. 20 to Nov. 2. The reading is up 0.5 months from September 2021 and 0.4 months from October 2020.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4—Today, longtime construction industry leader, instructor and military veteran Frank Boecker testified on behalf of Associated Builders and Contractors before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development on the indispensable role that community colleges, trade schools and career and technical education programs play in the construction industry.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1—National nonresidential construction spending contracted 0.6% in September, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $791.2 billion for the month.