Last reviewed: October 2026 · By the HVAC Brief Editorial Team · Our sourcing and editorial standards
This report measures wage theft at plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (NAICS 238220) using the US Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division’s (WHD) compliance action records: every concluded federal investigation since fiscal 2005, with back wages, workers affected, violations and penalties. It covers investigations whose findings periods ended between 2015 and 2025. The industry code includes plumbing contractors; WHD does not separate them. For pay levels, see HVAC technician salary by state.
Over those eleven years, WHD concluded 1,896 investigations of HVAC and plumbing contractors. It found violations in 83 percent of them and computed $26.3 million in back wages owed to 16,113 workers. Almost all of the money is unpaid overtime and underpaid prevailing wages on public construction, not minimum-wage violations.
Executive summary
WHD concluded 1,896 compliance actions at HVAC and plumbing contractors with findings periods ending in 2015 to 2025, about 172 a year. 1,566 (82.6 percent) found violations, a rate slightly above roofing (78.4%) and electrical contractors (80.4%) and in line with all industries (82.8%). WHD investigations are targeted, so the violation rate describes investigated firms, not the industry.
Back wages totalled $26.3 million for 16,113 workers, an average of $1,634 per worker, above roofing ($1,284), construction overall ($1,653) and all industries ($1,178). The median violation case with back wages involved $5,261. WHD also assessed $0.7 million in civil money penalties.
Two kinds of violation account for nearly all the money. Unpaid overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act is 97 percent of FLSA back wages; minimum-wage violations are 3 percent. And 46 percent of all back wages came from Davis-Bacon and Related Acts cases, prevailing-wage underpayments on federally funded construction, compared with 6 percent across all industries.
Texas and Florida together account for 36 percent of cases. Measured against industry employment, Texas has the highest investigation rate of any large state (32 cases per 10,000 workers over the period), a measure of enforcement attention as much as of employer behaviour. WHD also found child labor violations in 34 cases involving 53 minors.
Key findings
- HVAC and plumbing contractor investigations, 2015 to 2025: 1,896; with violations: 1,566 (82.6%).
- Back wages computed: $26.3 million, owed to 16,113 workers.
- Average back wages per worker: $1,634; median per violation case with back wages: $5,261.
- Unpaid overtime: 96.7 percent of FLSA back wages.
- Davis-Bacon prevailing-wage cases: 46 percent of all back wages (367 cases), against 6 percent in all industries.
- Cases with $100,000 or more in back wages: 53; with $10,000 or more: 443.
- Civil money penalties assessed: $0.7 million.
- Child labor: 34 cases, 53 minors found employed in violation.
- Repeat FLSA violators: 35 cases; willful: 26.
- Texas (376) and Florida (302) account for 36 percent of cases.
- Per year, WHD investigates about 1.5 HVAC and plumbing contractor workplaces per 10,000 industry workers (HVAC Brief calculation using QCEW).
- Back wages recovered average about $2,392,912 a year, roughly 0.003 percent of the industry’s annual payroll (HVAC Brief calculation).
What the federal enforcement data measures
WHD enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage, overtime, child labor), the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (prevailing wages on federally funded construction), the Service Contract Act and several other laws. Its compliance action dataset lists every concluded case, the employer, the industry code the investigator assigned, back wages the employer agreed to pay or was found to owe, workers affected and penalties. The data measure detected and resolved violations. Most wage theft is never investigated, and WHD selects many cases deliberately, either from worker complaints or as directed investigations in industries it considers high-risk, so the counts are a floor, and violation rates describe investigated employers only.
HVAC compared with other industries
| Industry | Cases | Found violations | Back wages | Workers | Per worker | Overtime share of FLSA | Davis-Bacon share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC and plumbing (238220) | 1,896 | 82.6% | $26.3 million | 16,113 | $1,634 | 97% | 46% |
| Electrical (238210) | 1,288 | 80.4% | $24.9 million | 11,510 | $2,165 | 93% | 57% |
| Roofing (238160) | 1,131 | 78.4% | $12.7 million | 9,881 | $1,284 | 98% | 16% |
| All construction (23) | 19,676 | 78.5% | $339.4 million | 205,386 | $1,653 | 93% | 35% |
| All industries | 147,366 | 82.8% | $2,196.0 million | 1,863,840 | $1,178 | 85% | 6% |
HVAC and plumbing contractors are close to the rest of construction on violation rates and overtime, and slightly above it on violation rate. They stand out on back wages per worker, $1,634, which is 39 percent above the all-industry figure, and on the weight of prevailing-wage cases, reflecting the trade’s work on federally funded construction such as military, public housing and government building projects. Electrical contractors have an even larger Davis-Bacon share (57%).
Wage theft cases by year
| Year | Cases | With violations | Back wages | Workers | Share of all WHD cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 179 | 140 | $2,297,147 | 1,219 | 1.0% |
| 2016 | 114 | 86 | $1,476,257 | 1,213 | 0.8% |
| 2017 | 170 | 154 | $1,907,175 | 1,828 | 0.9% |
| 2018 | 202 | 177 | $1,639,468 | 1,454 | 1.2% |
| 2019 | 174 | 150 | $2,587,922 | 1,406 | 1.1% |
| 2020 | 195 | 155 | $1,792,280 | 1,358 | 1.4% |
| 2021 | 221 | 179 | $3,224,779 | 2,044 | 1.8% |
| 2022 | 232 | 187 | $3,043,333 | 1,562 | 2.1% |
| 2023 | 171 | 145 | $5,930,099 | 2,140 | 1.7% |
| 2024 | 129 | 102 | $836,212 | 833 | 1.6% |
| 2025 | 109 | 91 | $1,587,366 | 1,056 | 2.0% |
Recent years are incomplete because investigations covering them are still being concluded. Source: US DOL WHD.
The case count peaked at 232 for findings periods ending in 2022. Counts for 2024 and 2025 are lower partly because investigations covering those periods are still open. Meanwhile WHD’s caseload across all industries fell sharply over the decade, from 18,414 to 5,439 on the same basis, so HVAC and plumbing contractors have become a larger share of a shrinking federal docket: 1.0 percent in 2015, 2.0 percent in 2025. The $5.9 million total for 2023 reflects several large prevailing-wage and overtime cases.
Wage theft cases by state
| State | Cases | With violations | Back wages | Workers | Cases per 10,000 industry workers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 376 | 308 | $3,409,275 | 2,684 | 32.2 |
| Florida | 302 | 259 | $2,783,629 | 3,432 | 29.1 |
| New York | 79 | 64 | $1,992,890 | 933 | 11.6 |
| Maryland | 42 | 33 | $1,881,945 | 375 | 13.7 |
| Virginia | 42 | 38 | $1,817,689 | 325 | 11.9 |
| California | 54 | 41 | $1,272,363 | 458 | 4.3 |
| Georgia | 58 | 45 | $1,016,697 | 394 | 15.8 |
| District of Columbia | 7 | 6 | $762,403 | 112 | 42.8 |
| New Mexico | 38 | 33 | $669,591 | 440 | 55.5 |
| Arizona | 41 | 31 | $629,278 | 432 | 11.0 |
| Tennessee | 23 | 21 | $621,280 | 538 | 8.1 |
| New Jersey | 37 | 31 | $604,930 | 178 | 12.2 |
| Louisiana | 38 | 33 | $591,782 | 293 | 25.6 |
| Colorado | 20 | 13 | $521,911 | 238 | 6.9 |
| Washington | 15 | 14 | $465,579 | 89 | 5.0 |
Texas and Florida lead on every measure, with 678 cases and $6.2 million between them. Several smaller jurisdictions rank high on back wages because of a few large prevailing-wage cases: Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, all with heavy federal construction activity. Puerto Rico also recorded $1.6 million across 9 cases, most of it in a single case. California, with the largest industry workforce, has few federal cases (54) partly because the state Labor Commissioner handles most wage claims under California law.
How big are HVAC wage theft cases?
| Back wages in case | Cases | Share |
|---|---|---|
| $0 (no back wages) | 718 | 38% |
| Under $1,000 | 247 | 13% |
| $1,000 to $9,999 | 488 | 26% |
| $10,000 to $99,999 | 390 | 21% |
| $100,000 or more | 53 | 3% |
Most cases are small. 38 percent produced no back wages, and another 13 percent less than $1,000. At the other end, 53 cases of $100,000 or more account for a large share of the money; the ten largest alone are 20 percent of all back wages.
Penalties, repeat violators and child labor
Back wages are restitution; civil money penalties are punishment, and WHD uses them sparingly. Across 1,566 HVAC and plumbing contractor cases with violations, WHD assessed $0.7 million in penalties, about $432 per violating case, against $16,808 in back wages per violating case. Penalties are reserved mainly for repeat or willful FLSA violations and child labor. The FLSA repeat and willful flags appear in 35 and 26 HVAC and plumbing cases respectively over the period.
| Industry | Penalties assessed | Penalty per violating case | Repeat flag | Willful flag | Child labor cases | Minors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC and plumbing (238220) | $0.7 million | $432 | 35 | 26 | 34 | 53 |
| Electrical (238210) | $0.2 million | $206 | 16 | 15 | 10 | 15 |
| Roofing (238160) | $2.4 million | $2,674 | 24 | 26 | 62 | 95 |
| All construction (23) | $16.8 million | $1,090 | 415 | 413 | 444 | 629 |
Child labor findings in the trade are rare but not negligible: 53 minors in 34 cases. Federal rules bar workers under 18 from hazardous occupations that include roofing and most power-driven equipment work, and restrict hours for those under 16. Roofing contractors, where the hazardous-occupation rules bite hardest, recorded 95 minors in 62 cases over the same period.
Original synthesis (HVAC Brief calculations)
1. Overtime, not minimum wage, is the HVAC wage theft problem
Of $12.2 million in FLSA back wages, $11.8 million (96.7 percent) was unpaid overtime and $0.4 million (3.0 percent) minimum wage. Overtime cases appeared in 811 of the 1,896 investigations. The data do not record how the overtime went unpaid, but the pattern fits the trade: technicians earn well above the minimum wage, so underpayment shows up as overtime. Likely mechanisms include off-the-clock time, unpaid travel between calls, straight-time pay for long seasonal weeks, and flat-rate or commission pay without a correct overtime calculation. The peak-season structure of HVAC work, with long weeks in summer and winter emergencies, makes overtime the natural fault line.
2. The public-works share
Davis-Bacon and Related Acts cases produced $12.0 million, or 46 percent, of HVAC and plumbing contractor back wages, from 367 cases. Across all industries the share is 6 percent. Mechanical contractors working on federally funded buildings must pay locally determined prevailing wages and fringe benefits; misclassifying a mechanic as a laborer, or failing to pay fringe benefits, produces large back-wage findings on a small number of workers. A handful of large federal construction cases therefore move the state and year totals.
3. How often the federal government looks
Averaging 172 concluded investigations a year against average industry employment of about 1.13 million (QCEW, 2015 to 2024), WHD investigates roughly 1.5 HVAC and plumbing contractor cases per 10,000 workers a year. With about 120,000 establishments in the industry (QCEW 2023), roughly 1 in 700 is investigated in a typical year. Back wages average about $2,392,912 a year, about 0.003 percent of the roughly $85.5 billion in annual payroll the industry reported in 2022. The gap between that figure and any plausible rate of underpayment is the clearest measure of how little wage theft federal enforcement can reach.
4. Enforcement is concentrated where federal resources are
Among large states, Texas has 32 cases per 10,000 industry workers over the period, Florida 29, and California 4. These rates partly reflect where WHD has concentrated construction enforcement and where state agencies do or do not enforce their own wage laws. A low federal count in a state with a strong state labor department (California, New York, Illinois) does not mean fewer violations.
Charts worth building from this data
- Stacked bar of HVAC back wages by law: FLSA overtime, FLSA minimum wage, Davis-Bacon, other.
- Bar chart comparing back wages per worker across construction trades.
- Map of HVAC WHD cases per 10,000 industry workers by state.
- Line chart of HVAC cases as a share of all WHD cases, 2015 to 2025.
- Histogram of case sizes.
Most quotable statistics
- Federal investigators found wage violations in 83 percent of investigations of HVAC and plumbing contractors from 2015 to 2025 (US DOL data).
- HVAC and plumbing contractors owed $26.3 million in back wages to 16,113 workers in federal cases from 2015 to 2025.
- Unpaid overtime is 97 percent of federal minimum wage and overtime back wages in the HVAC and plumbing trade.
- Nearly half (46%) of HVAC and plumbing back wages come from prevailing-wage violations on federally funded construction.
- Federal investigators found 53 minors employed in violation of child labor law at HVAC and plumbing contractors since 2015.
- Back wages recovered each year equal about 0.003 percent of the industry’s payroll (HVAC Brief calculation).
Data limitations
- WHD data cover federal enforcement only. State labor agencies, private lawsuits and arbitration are not included, which particularly understates states with active state enforcement.
- Investigations are not a random sample. Violation rates apply to investigated employers, not to the industry.
- The industry code is assigned at case level and is sometimes wrong; some cases coded 238220 involve general contractors or unrelated firms. Employer names are in the public data but are not reproduced here.
- Years are assigned by the end date of the findings period, not the date the case concluded; recent years are incomplete.
- Back wages are amounts employers agreed to pay or were found to owe; they are not necessarily the amounts actually paid to workers.
- Misclassification of employees as independent contractors appears in the data only when it produced FLSA or Davis-Bacon back wages; it is not separately counted.
Downloadable dataset: recommended fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| case_id | WHD case identifier |
| state | Employer state |
| naics | Industry code as recorded |
| findings_end_year | Year findings period ended |
| violation_count | Violations found |
| bw_agreed | Back wages agreed to pay, USD |
| workers_bw | Employees agreed to receive back wages |
| flsa_ot_bw / flsa_mw_bw | Overtime and minimum wage back wages |
| dbra_bw | Davis-Bacon back wages |
| cmp_assessed | Civil money penalties |
| child_labor_minors | Minors found in violation |
Press summary
Federal labor investigators found wage violations in 83 percent of their investigations of HVAC and plumbing contractors between 2015 and 2025, computing $26.3 million in back wages owed to 16,113 workers, according to an HVAC Brief analysis of Department of Labor enforcement records. Unpaid overtime made up 97 percent of Fair Labor Standards Act back wages, and nearly half of all back wages came from prevailing-wage violations on federally funded projects. Texas and Florida accounted for more than a third of cases.
Suggested headlines
- Federal investigators find wage violations at 83% of HVAC contractors they examine
- Overtime is where HVAC wage theft happens
- Half of HVAC back wages come from federal construction jobs
- 53 minors found working illegally at HVAC and plumbing contractors
- Texas and Florida lead the nation in HVAC wage cases
Source quality ranking
| Source | Tier | Why |
|---|---|---|
| US DOL Wage and Hour Division compliance action data | Tier 1 | Administrative records of every concluded federal case |
| BLS QCEW, NAICS 23822 | Tier 1 | Industry employment and wages for normalisation |
| Advocacy and academic wage theft prevalence estimates | Not used | Vary widely by method; not combined with enforcement data here |
Methodology
- Data: US Department of Labor, WHD compliance action data, complete dataset download from data.dol.gov (WHD_enforcement.zip, extract dated October 5, 2026), 367,890 cases.
- Filters: six-digit NAICS 238220 (HVAC and plumbing), 238160 (roofing), 238210 (electrical), two-digit 23 (construction) and all cases; findings period end date in calendar years 2015 to 2025. Duplicate case IDs removed.
- Back wages, workers and penalties are the dataset’s agreed-to-pay and assessed fields. Overtime and minimum-wage shares use FLSA-specific fields; Davis-Bacon share uses the DBRA back-wage field over total back wages.
- Repeat and willful counts use the FLSA repeat-violator flag (R, W, RW).
- Normalisation: QCEW NAICS 23822 private employment, 2024 annual averages by state; national average of 2015 to 2024 annual averages; 2022 total wages for the payroll comparison.
Frequently asked questions
How common is wage theft in HVAC?
Federal investigators found violations in 83 percent of their 1,896 investigations of HVAC and plumbing contractors in 2015 to 2025. Investigations are targeted, so that is a rate for investigated firms, not the whole trade.
How much in back wages do HVAC companies owe?
WHD computed $26.3 million owed to 16,113 workers over 2015 to 2025, an average of $1,634 per worker.
What is the most common wage violation in HVAC?
Unpaid overtime, which is 97 percent of FLSA back wages in the trade.
Do HVAC technicians get overtime?
Most HVAC technicians are non-exempt employees entitled to time-and-a-half for hours over 40 a week under the FLSA, including many paid flat-rate or commission. Some states require daily overtime as well.
What is Davis-Bacon and why does it matter for HVAC?
The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts require prevailing wages on federally funded construction. Violations produced 46 percent of HVAC and plumbing back wages.
Which state has the most HVAC wage theft cases?
Texas (376 cases), then Florida (302). Federal case counts also reflect where WHD focuses enforcement.
Are there child labor violations in HVAC?
Yes. WHD found 53 minors employed in violation of child labor rules in 34 HVAC and plumbing contractor cases since 2015.
How do I report wage theft at an HVAC company?
File a complaint with the US Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (1-866-487-9243 or dol.gov/agencies/whd) or with your state labor department. Complaints are confidential.
Is HVAC wage theft worse than in other trades?
Violation rates are similar across construction. HVAC and plumbing have higher back wages per worker ($1,634) than roofing ($1,284) and lower than electrical ($2,165).
Does this data include plumbers?
Yes. NAICS 238220 combines plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, and WHD does not split them.
Cite this report
Sources
- US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Compliance Action Data (enforcement database); complete dataset via data.dol.gov, extract dated October 5, 2026.
- US DOL Wage and Hour Division, data and statistics.
- US DOL, Davis-Bacon and Related Acts.
- BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, NAICS 23822.
The HVAC Brief is an independent trade publication. We do not sell equipment, take manufacturer advertising, or accept payment for placement in our research. Corrections welcome.
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