While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.
Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.
Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists.
“It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,” said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor” to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles.
Yeah… IM no fan of trump but the reason housing is so expensive has nothing to do with needing more houses.
I’ll be so glad when this election is over and he can just lose the rest of his criminal cases and get sentenced, or have his final Big Mac Attack and dodge justice forever.
The ONY REASON why immigrant labour is needed is because too much of the profits flow to the Parasite Class at the top.
It used to be that America could build affordable family homes for decent-sized families using well-paid American citizens. This was possible because those Americans were actually paid well enough to afford homes of their own; most of the value of their labour actually came back to them. Plus, most building materials weren’t beset by Greedflation and the need to keep obscene amounts of wealth flowing into pockets that were already overstuffed without more wealth than the person could spend in 100 lifetimes.
America could return to that time, where even the lowest-paid workers make enough to be within a stone’s throw of affording their own home. All it takes is a political leader willing to do the politically painful job of taxing the fuck out of the Parasite Class - including treating any loans taken out using stocks as collateral as “income” to be taxed, regardless of the destination of those funds.
That, plus a metric arseload of other things such as making corporate ownership of homes illegal and making “investor ownership” of homes beyond about 3-5 homes similarly illegal. Because not only do these parasites suck up the supply of homes, preventing renters from getting off the rental market, but they are also the primary players jacking up rents to unaffordable levels, seeking to squeeze every possible dollar out of hard-working Americans. Let these parasites find a real job if they want to continue earning money.
All it takes is a political leader willing to do the politically painful job of taxing the fuck out of the Parasite Class
I don’t think it works that way.
I’m not trying to say that would be a bad thing, it would be great. I think, though, that what really has to happen is strong unions fighting for their fair share.
For as long as people are looking to elect “the leaders” to fix things, things are going to stay unfixed. As soon as they take for themselves the political and economic power, within structures of power that are not political parties, they can have a real seat at the table, instead of finally finding someone else to send on a voyage to the great white father to come back to them with the right caliber of benefits secured.
It’s been happening, the last few years. It’s grand. And obviously, not having political leaders who want to return us to the days of feudalism or Nazi Germany as enforced with terrifying modern technology would be a nice boost to being able to get that done. But I think it has to come from unions and citizen activism in order to really come true in the right way. That’s how it happened back when things really were okay in the country.
That’s a problem across all types of business.
If you are cutting wages or laying off people, there is less overall ability to pay for things. You’re basically cutting your customers ability to pay.
Even if your employees aren’t your target market, they probably buy stuff from the people who are your customers.
This psychotic race to the bottom among business owners is just shooting yourself in the foot with extra steps.
This is proof they don’t understand the endgame here. The only (legal) type of slavery left in the United States is prisoner labour. It is not a coincidence that the right wants to make so many things criminal. It’s also not a coincidence they want to keep poor people desperate because it makes them more likely to commit crime. It’s not a coincidence they support minimum sentences.
More crime, more free labour, more for profit prisons selling services…
This is exactly what I’ve been thinking lately. And on top of already existing laws, make new ones that criminalize currently normal things. Hell, the South enacted new laws after slavery ended and only applied them against Black Americans. Why stop there, why not increase penalties for certain crimes from misdemeanors to felonies and make 3 felony convictions mean a life sentence?
The only part I disagree with is the for profit prisons part. 8% of prisoners are in private prisons which is 8% too many, but 92% are in publicly funded and operated prisons. And those publicly operated prisons sell the services of their trapped slave labor for so many more things than stamping license plates or road work. Not only do they fight fires and clean up after natural disasters, they also make kit (armor, helmets) for the armed forces, they pick crops, they manufacture white goods (washing machines, refrigerators)(I can’t find a link specifically mentioning appliances and I’ll update this it I find one), and so much more. Shoot, some cities’ budgets would be blown up if not for the availability of publicly held prison slaves.
Well if they can keep income inequality growing, there’s a big pool of wage slaves to draw from with much better optics.
Translation: Builders would rather go broke than pay anyone a living wage.
Almost all trump related policies will drive up costs for the consumer. He’s only worried about lining the pockets of his rich friends, not making daily life for the average family more affordable
during the 2016 election cycle, the national association of home builders pac gave $361,500 to democrat campaigns and $1,820,000 to republicans (83.4%).
for the current election (reported so far), they are even more unbalanced at 85.9% republican.
[1](https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/national-assn-of-home-builders/C00000901/summary/2024)
remind me again, mr tobin, which political party wants to deport your ‘vital’ workers?
source ↩︎
Pretty much.
I walked by a construction site when I lived in California, I heard everyone speaking Spanish.
I walk by a construction site now that I live in Indiana and I hear… everyone speaking Spanish.
I’m guessing that at least some of them aren’t citizens.
Don’t need to be a citizen to pass eVerify. I’m working with six natural born citizens, one naturalized citizen, three green card holders, three work visa holders and a “dreamer”
Anytime you come across someone shitting on immigration ask them who built their house.
I’ve been saying this for years, the American dream is subsidized by cheap labor from South of the border. Without them we would be doing far worse
Not to mention illegal immigrants are half as likely to commit crime as American citizens
Not to mention illegal immigrants are half as likely to commit crime as American citizens
It’s like Umberto said in The Ranch: “We live in fear everyday. 5 miles over the speed limit and it could ruin our life”
“We live in fear everyday. 5 miles over the speed limit and it could ruin our life”
Almost every time I was stuck behind a slow person on the L.A. freeway, they were Latino. I guessed that was why back then and I still do.
If you want an economy where every citizen has a chance to be middle class, you have to find some other source of labor to do working class jobs. That’s why we shouldn’t even want American citizens to do these jobs. Bring in immigrants that get paid well relative to where they came from to do that stuff and send our citizens to school and do middle class work. It’s a win-win for all involved.
That’s not even mentioning our problem with an aging population that requires immigration to sustain social programs.
If you want an economy where every citizen has a chance to be middle class, you have to find some other source of labor to do working class jobs.
Or labour jobs could pay middle class wages, like they did a couple of generations ago.
whoa but hold on, what if some guy in suit on TV says they don’t deserve it because they aren’t a boss?
Yeah, but it’s still difficult manual labor. Not work I’d want for myself or my hypothetical children.
We should be building apartments, stop building unscalable housing
Orrrr how about everyone has the freedom to live in the dwelling of their choice that they can afford .
Sure, if you stop externalizing all the costs that let them afford it.
Why not pay builders a fair wage then?
It’s certainly not labour costs driving up house prices.
The work they do fucking sucks regardless of the pay.
99% of people just don’t want to do the work it’s not a matter of wage and most of the time you get twice the worker when you hire Mexicans just speaking from experience
I guarantee you more people would find themselves wanting to do the work if it paid more.
The great pay exists in some construction sectors. State and Federal work have “wage rates” where laborers, carpenters, operators etc. have a mandatory wage and benefits. On a job I am currently on the laborers are earning $64/hr and our company is having a problem with staffing. Plenty of people want the pay, but as mentioned before, it is really tough work, and the deadlines mean that you can’t fuck the dog. That being said, this work is limited to citizens and monitored closely. I know it is cliche to say “no one wants to work anymore” but as a 30 year old I am one of very few young people I work with. I get it, the work is brutal and you have no energy to have a work life balance at the end of the day.
Not always about the wage. You could pay 200k per year and still have trouble finding people willing to climb up on a roof day in and day out.
Especially if they find out that roofer is the fourth-most dangerous job in the U.S.
https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states
Incidentally, police officer is ranked at 22. Well below garbage collectors (5), delivery drivers (7), or agricultural workers (11).
delivery drivers (7)
I shudder at the thought of driving for work. It’s already so hard to keep up spatial awareness of the crazy drivers for an hour or less. I cannot imagine 8 hours of that.
And on top of all of that, you usually have to provide your own vehicle. Which means you basically drive it to death much earlier than the average lifespan of the car. If we’re talking something like Uber Eats, they don’t even cover your gas.
I cannot imagine it be a worthwhile investment. The only people I know who do Uber are retired and do it out of boredom. Fortunately, I don’t know a single soul who does it for a job (without having another job to do as well).
I don’t know anyone lately, but I know plenty of people who did it when they were younger. Including a trandgender friend who did it for maybe 20 years. I’m guessing she doesn’t have a lot of job opportunities here in Indiana. She’s such an awesome person too.
Try 11
There must be a good reason why why family quit 11! I’ll trust their judgement on this one.
The way I see it, there’s two options:
-
Pay people more. 300k, 400k, 500k, whatever it takes. Surely there’s a number that people would feel is worth the risk. The obvious downside is that increases the cost of construction.
-
Make the process of roofing safer - invent new safety gear or safety practices, automation equipment that can be operated from the ground, introduce legislation that encourages those practices or subsidizes the new equipment. The obvious downside is this requires upfront investment and cooperation between government and industry.
Either way, the current practice of “throw cheap immigrant labor at it until it goes away” is not tenable.
It’s not just “cheap” immigrant labor. Those laborers bring ability that you have a very hard time finding here.
-
Then the wages are still too low…
It really is not that simple.
It really IS that simple. You tell some schmuck off the street “I will pay you $300K a year to climb on roofs and nail down shingles all day.”, you really think they’ll say no? I don’t. Same with retail, same with food service, same with sales, painting, engineering, and more.
Historically underpaying job markets aren’t experiencing a “”““labor shortage””“” from lack of openings or bad press, they’re just finally realizing that paying people like shit then treating them poorly isn’t going to get them more workers.
They will say no especially when they hear his dangerous it is. My uncle fell off the roof and ended up with a hernia. It took forever to do the surgery to fix it. And really, 300k? How expensive do you think that’s going to make a house? As much as I hate the idea there’s only so much that you can charge for something. We’d have to somehow go after the corporation for unprecedented profit in addition to raising wages.
They’ll say yes. They won’t last long. The churn will be great and then there will be shortage. It really isn’t as simple as pay.
So your solution is an impoverished underclass that cannot escape work no one will do, you are sick.
Not at all.
And by that logic no country in the world would have soldiers either.
People have been doing dangerous jobs for pay since the existence of pay. If the pay is right someone will perform your dangerous job. If the payout isn’t worth the risk then they won’t. It’s the free market in action.
The free market currently says that a new home is worth X dollars because of what people are willing to pay vs. the labor going into it. Materials are cheap compared to the work. The rates laborers get paid stem from the free market equilibrium on that. Labor rates go up, house prices go up, home ownership goes down. Builders in the US get about 15% margin on building and selling new homes. You have maybe 10% of wiggle room before the profit in building homes is not worth the effort. So laborers could get paid…10% more at best before home prices go up. That’s not going to attract many more people to offset immigrant labor demand.
I have known enough growers and builders that no matter the pay, people cannot simply will themselves able to do that kind of work. It’s just.Not.That.Simple.
Everything to maximize profits. and one should examine the US agricultural sector that relies heavily on cheap illegal labor.
We also wouldn’t have, you know, food, since agriculture and meat-packing are heavily dependent on undocumented immigrants and almost every kitchen in every restaurant in the country is staffed with undocumented immigrants. I want to think that the importance of food and housing would make Republicans not actually do this, but you never know with these crazy fuckwits. Perhaps they think child and prison labor would make an adequate replacement.
The right wing listened to Milton Friedman talk about illegal immigration and went ‘yeah!’, missing the point entirely.
Here’s the thing these fucking racist shitbags are not telling you. If the country the illegal immigrants came from won’t take them back then the sending country can do shit all to make them. That teams no deportation. No deportation means indefinite detention. Indefinite detention means free labor. I harbor no illusions that this hasn’t been the plan from the start.
The world is at a tipping point. Do we backslide into slavery and genocide, or do we stand against it? It’s not looking good. I, for one, never thought I would see a time when Americans would so blindly goose-step their way into fascism.
From a German perspective you’re almost at the end of your slide.
I’d never thought I’d live (long) after ww2 and experience a similar thing elsewhere during my lifetime. Yet here we are.
Even if Trump doesn’t win (or especially - not meaning he should, though) I assume very bad things coming.
Issues have been ignored for far too long.
Umm you don’t have to take back your citizens? Are you sure?
I read a great legal comment once about how revoking citizenship sounds cool but is really bad for pretty much exactly this reason. You’re left in this weird legal limbo with no country to go to (in that case to face criminal legal process).
Here in the UK there have been a few cases of people of people who scampered off to join Isis etc who have had their citizenship removed and are unable to return to the country. I’m not a law-knower but I think this is pretty legally iffy, it certainly happens though.
I am 90% sure that was only people with dual citizenship
Most likely. I don’t think you’re allowed to knowingly make a person stateless.
You’re also not allowed to stage a coup after losing an election, but they did that anyway.
Well did they have dual citizenship? That’s different than illegal immigrants who don’t have dual.
It does seem to be debatable in one case - specifically Shamima Begum, at the time she was stripped of citizenship she was apparently entitled to Bangladesh citizenship through her parents (hence why the home secretary felt it was possible) however Bangladesh have said she was never actually a citizen, she’s never been to Bangladesh and they have no intention of giving her Bangladesh citizenship. The courts of appeal in the UK have sided with the former home secretary, however she does appear to be effectively stateless.
In general though, it is understood that a person’s citizenship in the UK cannot be stripped unless they are dual citizens.
