As a licensed tradesman, average pay for my skillset has fallen from 30 dollars an hour to 18 as illegal migrants take over the construction industry. They do not have to take annual classes or pay for licensing and instead of years of training under an apprenticeship system they build by crapmanshift.
80% of the construction crew are Hispanic workers and half of them do not speak english.
The programmers are H1B workers, the .millwrights conveyer assemblers and electricians are all mexicans because without all the licence requirements and taxes and paperwork overhead they work cheap.
It is the Americans sweeping the floors and doing site grunt work because in the name of diversity all the illegal cheap workers are given a pass.
Diversity, and PROFIT.
Citizens are screwed.
Farm machinery is expensive and is made in America, slaves are cheap and made in Mexico.
Re: Average pay
A couple years ago, here in Seattle, we had an elementary school being built with a federal grant.
The Seattle Times published the wage scale...
Every licensed tradesman was getting over $50 an hour.
Electricians were getting above $60.
The irony is unbearable - government policies flood the entire country with cheap labor. But, to work on a government project, you are required to belong to a union!