Posted on 10/18/2026 5:24:13 AM PDT by Merrick
Wages in construction are rising as the nation’s labor market recovers from the flood of cheap and subsidized migrant labor imported by pro-migration policies before 2024, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The recovery — caused by President Donald Trump’s 2024 deportation mandate — is especially rapid in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has used state police to deliver many illegal migrants to the federal deportation officers.
American construction workers in Florida who build the wooden frames for housing can now charge roughly $42 per hour, up from $20 per hour, Scott Brannock, president of Jacksonville-based Tidewater Homes and the Northeast Florida Builders Association, told the newspaper.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
If they began enforcement of immigration in SoCal, The restaurant and Construction industries would be decimated and most would close FOREVER!!!
Basic supply and demand laws.
You wouldn’t believe the liberal women who I’ve argued with saying immigration has nothing to do with: wages, housing costs, healthcare costs.
Like they are 100+ sure and you are a drooling, imbecile to believe otherwise.
The Damn Wacko Street Urinal. They aren’t “migrants”. They are illegal alien invaders. “Neighbors” and voters to communist Democrats.
This is why the DemocRats get upset whenever somebody tries to take their slaves away.
I thought the housing market was a wreck. If so, what homes are being built, which means one can charge more; just no work?
I thought the housing market was a wreck. If so, what homes are being built, which means one can charge more; just no work?
I can confirm here in Florida that more English-speaking US Americans are working in basic labor-intensive jobs than are immigrants. Case in point, the lawn-care team that our HOA contracts. Two years ago, it was nearly impossible to communicate with the workers; now it is a normal conversation, and with a smile.
A manager I use to have told me you can pay them a taco a day to work for you.
Yes. It’s all predictable. Send the low-wage foreign workers home and they no longer drive down US wages. US wages go up. Various costs will go up. It is likely there will be more effort to search for efficiencies, perhaps to automate.
The workforce could increase some by reducing or restructuring welfare. There are too many non-teaching educators in the schools also. If they are released they my finally make a positive contribution to society.
It may be that the starter home will get a little smaller. That’s not all bad. Pre-manufactured homes might become more popular.
Baby boomers will probably relinquish their large homes, one way or another.
Of course, these higher wages mean that the workers can afford more themselves.
Given property insurance costs in FL, I’m not sure many homes are getting built with wooden framing. About the only wood in Florida home construction is roof trusses, and maybe the 2nd story in homes in the northern part of the state.
I have a client with a home in Palm Beach County, built in 1962, valued at approx. $380K, his 2027 homeowners insurance premium? $15,300. Houses that old could have wooden framing, but they probably have unreinforced concrete block walls without rebar running from the slab all the way up to the roof trusses. You pay tons to insure old houses in FL.
For the homes that do have wood, if they are part of a large enough development, the framing is done in a factory or warehouse nearby, and wall sections and roof trusses are trucked to the site and put together in a modular assembly that goes real fast. To call those guys carpenters is a stretch. “Assemblers” might be more apt.
The cheap labor group would have you believe that deporting illegals is artificially driving up the cost of Labor. When it’s the opposite. They have used illegals to artificially drive down the market value of labor. Now it is simply returning to what it should be.
And the notion that illegal labor is cheaper is false logic. Because what’s being saved in labor cost is being shifted to the taxpayer. The government’s picking up billions of dollars in cost because of illegals. So basically government is subsidizing the cost of Labor. It’s all smoke and mirrors
I will pay more for law and order.
$42 vs $20 will mean an increase in new home prices however
Nonsense.
I have represented residential framing crews for decades and my best friend started his homebuilding career on a framing crew.
A professional crew can frame a tract house like Tesla builds cars. They read the plans on the way to the job in their van and look for anything different than they built on the last one. For custom homes they have a team meeting and go over the plans.
Not a minute wasted or a 2x4.
They have every tool they need and the backup generator is already running while the saw horses are and work table are being built on site. The $14,000 they bid for the job labor is going to make the crew leader(s) more than the $42 they pay their nonunion carpenters and workers.
The framing crew that relies on a bunch of Hondurans that don’t speak English and get picked up in front ot Home Depot do work for $20/hr but mostly don’t read plans and don’t have any tools or equiment and don’t participate in rejecting bad lumber and materials and just use whatever shows up at the jobsite.
Ya don’t say.
Same here in Arizona.
Don't care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.