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.
Our economy depends on a base of low cost labor that used to be from kids or young people. It’s almost like Democrats have decided to fill that void with immigrants while Republicans are trying to get back to the low cost labor being from having more kids. It makes sense if your goal is to keep the machine running the way it was designed, or at least how it evolved to operate. Social security, insurance, fast food, service industries, construction would all need overhaul to function without low cost labor being their base. Seems like you could reduce consumerism in general to compensate for the reduced low income work force, but that would hurt the economic numbers and cause an overall contraction in the stock market. Tough pills to swallow for everyone who has accumulated any significant amount of wealth in this system.
Isn’t one of the arguments for raising minimum wage that higher incomes will result in more consumption and social program contribution?
Conservatives have always been about creating and maintaining have exploitable underclass. First it was owned slaves, then prisoner slaves, than “illegal” immigrants.
Conservatives are trying to deport illegal immigrants and stop allowing them in, which may have a motive, but exploitation is not it.
