Fringe benefit credit calculator: what your plan contributions are worth per hour

What counts toward the fringe

Contributions to bona fide fringe benefit plans count: health insurance, pension, life and disability insurance, vacation and holiday pay funded through a plan, and apprenticeship training funds. Payments the law already requires, such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation, do not count. Neither do things the worker can take or leave, like a tool allowance or a truck.

Why a monthly premium is not divided by project hours

A health premium covers the worker for every hour they work in the month, on your public job and on your private jobs. The Department of Labor’s rule, written into 29 CFR 5.25 in 2023, is annualization: divide the annual contribution by the total hours the worker works in the year, covered and uncovered. That gives the creditable hourly amount. Dividing the premium by project hours alone would credit the whole benefit to the public job and shift the cost of private work onto the prevailing wage.

There is one exception the calculator offers. A defined contribution pension plan with immediate participation and essentially immediate vesting (within the first 500 hours worked) may be credited against covered hours only, because the contribution follows the hour worked rather than covering a period of time.

Cash makes up the rest

If your plan credit per hour is less than the fringe rate on the determination, the difference is owed to the worker as cash, on every hour including overtime. It goes in column 6C and in the worker’s gross. If the credit is more than the fringe rate, the excess may count toward the basic hourly rate, with the overtime premium still computed on the determination’s basic rate.

What page 2 needs

Every plan you take credit for is listed in box 5(a) of the Statement of Compliance with its type and whether it is funded. Keep the plan document, the summary given to workers, and the remittance records; they are what an investigator asks for. The fringe rules in full.