Millwrights work at the Eastern Atlantic States Carpenters Technical Center in Edison, N.J.
Roosevelt Institute fact sheet finds 54 percent of major DOE clean energy funding went to work covered by project labor agreements
Project labor agreements were a central feature of the federal clean energy buildout under the Biden administration, with 54 percent of major Department of Energy project funding going to work covered by a PLA, according to an April 16 fact sheet from the Roosevelt Institute.
The fact sheet, which accompanies the Institute’s report The Receipts: The Untold and Underappreciated Outcomes of Biden’s Clean Energy Strategy, credits labor standards tied to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act with driving private investment, expanding industrial capacity and raising construction wages.
“This kind of industrial strategy attracts private capital, expands productive capacity, and raises labor standards simultaneously,” the Roosevelt Institute wrote, pointing to PLAs and prevailing wage requirements as core reasons the strategy produced good-paying union jobs rather than low-road work.
Among the key findings:
- Projects funded through the Department of Energy carried local prevailing wage requirements, with average hourly compensation including benefits of about $68, roughly 40 percent above the US construction average.
- 54 percent of DOE major project funding included PLAs, and 32 percent included neutrality commitments or collective bargaining agreements for operations.
- 74 percent of DOE major project funding went to projects with formal labor or community benefit agreements covering workforce training, union partnerships and local hiring.
- Weekly earnings for workers building power and communication lines rose 43 percent as clean energy demand drove up wages.
- Construction apprenticeships rose 14.2 percent from 2022 to 2024, compared with 2.2 percent growth in the prior two-year period, an increase the Institute tied to the IRA’s prevailing wage and apprenticeship tax credit incentives.
The fact sheet also pushes back on the idea that labor standards slow projects down. Companies receiving DOE funding reported that PLAs and community benefit plans led to earlier planning and smoother community engagement, while permitting timelines, supply chains and slow contracting were the actual sources of delay.
Announced clean energy private sector investments grew from $288 billion to $695 billion in the 12 quarters after the IIJA passed, and the US construction workforce was 13 percent larger in January 2025 than in January 2021, according to the fact sheet.
Read the full fact sheet at the Roosevelt Institute.
