Eliminate the two lowest prevailing wage levels for foreign workers

Research notes

The operative text was read at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-03-27/html/2026-06017.htm, not inferred from the abstract; the percentile changes are at the preamble’s “Prevailing Wage Methodology” section and the codification at the section-by-section discussion of 20 CFR 656.40(b)(2). This moved in the same direction, on a different object: DOL is attacking low-paid foreign labor, but by repricing the levels rather than deleting two of them.

One negative search covered the other departments’ asks on p. 167. A search of final and proposed rules in the Federal Register for “prevailing wage” returns this one document for the whole window; comments closed 2026-05-26 and no final rule has issued.

• Unified Agenda, 2026-09-01. Labor’s full Unified Agenda was read at reginfo.gov (2026 agenda). The proposed rule already cited above is RIN 1205-AC30, Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United States, ETA, Proposed Rule Stage; the agenda entry describes it, in DOL’s own words, as changing “the computation of wage levels under the Department’s four-tiered wage structure”, which confirms the reading of the rule text — four levels are kept and repriced, not reduced to two. Because the NPRM has published (2026-03-27, 2026-06017), the Status rests on that document and not on the agenda entry, and it does not move. The only other wage-level entries, RIN 1205-AC29 (PERM labor-market test) and RIN 1205-AC15 (H-2B employer-provided survey methodology), are adjacent programs and touch no wage level this Quote names. https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202510&RIN=1205-AC30