Penalty exposure calculator

How the number is built

Back wages are what the workers should have been paid, and they are owed in full regardless of which track applies. On California public works, section 1775 adds a civil penalty per worker, per calendar day of underpayment: not less than $40 per day unless the failure was a good-faith mistake promptly and voluntarily corrected, not less than $80 per day for a contractor with a prior assessment, and up to $200 per day at the top of the range. Separately, section 1771.4(b) penalizes a contractor $100 for each calendar day a certified payroll went unfiled with the Labor Commissioner's electronic system, capped at $5,000 per project.

Overtime violations add $25 per worker per day under section 1813, and apprenticeship violations carry their own penalties under section 1777.7; neither is included in the total below. On a federal Davis-Bacon job there is no per-day civil penalty comparable to section 1775: exposure is the back wages themselves, recoverable by the contracting agency withholding contract funds (including funds on other federal contracts held by the same prime, 29 CFR 5.9), plus a discretionary three-year debarment from federal and federally assisted work for disregard of labor standards (29 CFR 5.12). This calculator uses five paid days per week for the section 1775 line and full calendar days for the section 1771.4(b) line.

Illustrative arithmetic against published statutory maxima and minima, not a legal determination and not a guarantee that any agency will assess these amounts. Aeternus Dynamics is not a law firm; actual penalties are assessed by the Labor Commissioner, the contracting agency, or the Department of Labor. The cheapest exposure is the line that never gets filed wrong: a review before you file catches it first.