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Are you arguing that citizens cannot do this work while being paid living wages in union jobs? I am arguing this is a very real possibility. This issue is big

Are you arguing that citizens cannot do this work while being paid living wages in union jobs? I am arguing this is a very real possibility. This issue is bigger than just "living wages in union jobs". Before workers can find good paying jobs building homes, buyers have to able to afford the homes these high paid workers build. It's really a supply and demand, chicken or egg type problem. It's not easily solved by simply removing cheap labor.

toomuchtodo 7mo ago
I agree removing cheap undocumented labor is going to potentially exacerbate the problem in the short term. I am also mindful that a significant portion of the US economy runs on exploitation of undocumented immigrant labor. If the US remains undesirable to immigrant labor in the short term, the system will be forced towards using domestic labor if houses are to be built. I am anti exploitation, not anti immigrant, to be clear. We cannot kick the can forever on enabling exploitation of labor at scale, imho. In the short term, if you want to make housing more affordable, destroy demand for housing in the US (which this administration has done, unintentionally, by repeatedly damaging the economy with policy). This is faster than building new housing. Happy accidents. You see parallels to this with the Iran conflict oil supply and price shock that is going to force an energy transition very quickly. More US Counties See Population Drops Under Trump’s Immigration Crackdown - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-26/us-census-shows-more-counties-see-population-drops-in-immigration-crackdown https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-26/us-census... | https://archive.today/OGwWj https://archive.today/OGwWj - March 26th, 2026 The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-immigration-crackdown-could-shrink-us-population-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-imm... | https://archive.today/LdA0d https://archive.today/LdA0d - January 30th, 2026 At the same time, there are a lot of sellers of existing inventory out there who simply have not made peace with forward looking real estate price levels. They are married to pandemic market conditions, which is unfortunate. Those who must sell will, and over time, prices will come down to more reasonable price levels as closed sales set comparables for future near term transactions. Over Half of Home Listings Have Been Lingering on the Market For More Than 2 Months - https://www.redfin.com/news/stale-housing-inventory-february-2026/ https://www.redfin.com/news/stale-housing-inventory-february... - March 30th, 2026 Update on the “Lock-in Effect” in the Housing Market: Below-3% & 4% Mortgages Fade Very Slowly - https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/27/update-on-the-lock-in-effect-in-the-housing-market-below-3-4-mortgages-fade-very-slowly/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/27/update-on-the-lock-in-effe... - March 27th, 2026 Prices of New Single-Family Homes Drop Further, Inventory of Completed New Homes for Sale Highest since 2009 - https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/19/prices-of-new-single-family-homes-drop-further-inventory-of-completed-new-homes-for-sale-highest-since-2009/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/19/prices-of-new-single-famil... - March 19th, 2026 Broadly speaking, the current administration has done far more to cool the economy with dysfunctional policy (tariffs, immigration) than the Fed would be able to do with target rates. If you need workers, they exist domestically (based on unemployment rates and job opening statistics as of this comment). Employ them or go without. (lots of parallels in the US residential real estate market to private equity at the moment; valuations are too high and unreasonable with no buyers, and lots of folks disappointed by fundamentals and reality)
- jqpabc123 7mo ago
  If you want to make housing more affordable, destroy demand for housing in the US. In other words, make the country less prosperous. And by doing this, those hoped for high paying construction jobs may never materialize. As I said, this is not a problem that can be addressed quickly or easily or to anyone's satisfaction.
  - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
    > In other words, make the country less prosperous. Prosperous for who? Shareholders? Asset holders? No loss, citations below. Wages must go up, that is it. And constraining the domestic labor supply is one component of that. "Line go up" is not a serious strategy, "American Prosperity" is a fairy tale told to and believed by the unsophisticated to continue the grift. Prosperity theology at nation state mythology level. > And by doing this, those hoped for high paying construction jobs may never materialize. Jobs will continue to exist so long as demand exists, and wages will be bid up as the US working age population declines, compressing prime working age population cohort (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060). See "The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival" (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6) for details and models on this topic. US Labor Force Demographics Are Worsening - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492787 - March 2026 31% of Wealth Owned by People Over 70 - https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-people-over-70/ https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-... - December 7th, 2025 Investors are making up the highest share of homebuyers in 5 years - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/home-sales-investors-make-up-highest-share-of-buyers-in-5-years.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/home-sales-investors-make-up... - October 8th, 2025 ("Investors continue to own about 20% of the 86 million single-family homes in the country") A Visual Breakdown of Who Owns America’s Wealth - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-owns-americas-wealth/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-o... - March 4th, 2025 The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-... - October 18th, 2021 ("The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks") Per the St Louis Fed: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.stlouisfed.org/institute-for-economic-equity/the-state-of-us-wealth-inequality https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.stlouisfed.org/ins... ("The State of U.S. Wealth Inequality | February 05, 2024") > How much wealth inequality is there in the U.S.? The top 10% of households by wealth had $6.5 million on average. As a group, they held 66.6% of total household wealth. The bottom 50% of households by wealth had $50,000 on average. As a group, they held only 2.6% of total household wealth. (to understand the system, you must decompose the system; the purpose of the system is what it does)

toomuchtodo 7mo ago

I agree removing cheap undocumented labor is going to potentially exacerbate the problem in the short term. I am also mindful that a significant portion of the US economy runs on exploitation of undocumented immigrant labor. If the US remains undesirable to immigrant labor in the short term, the system will be forced towards using domestic labor if houses are to be built. I am anti exploitation, not anti immigrant, to be clear. We cannot kick the can forever on enabling exploitation of labor at scale, imho. In the short term, if you want to make housing more affordable, destroy demand for housing in the US (which this administration has done, unintentionally, by repeatedly damaging the economy with policy). This is faster than building new housing. Happy accidents. You see parallels to this with the Iran conflict oil supply and price shock that is going to force an energy transition very quickly. More US Counties See Population Drops Under Trump’s Immigration Crackdown - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-26/us-census-shows-more-counties-see-population-drops-in-immigration-crackdown https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-26/us-census... | https://archive.today/OGwWj https://archive.today/OGwWj - March 26th, 2026 The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-immigration-crackdown-could-shrink-us-population-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-imm... | https://archive.today/LdA0d https://archive.today/LdA0d - January 30th, 2026 At the same time, there are a lot of sellers of existing inventory out there who simply have not made peace with forward looking real estate price levels. They are married to pandemic market conditions, which is unfortunate. Those who must sell will, and over time, prices will come down to more reasonable price levels as closed sales set comparables for future near term transactions. Over Half of Home Listings Have Been Lingering on the Market For More Than 2 Months - https://www.redfin.com/news/stale-housing-inventory-february-2026/ https://www.redfin.com/news/stale-housing-inventory-february... - March 30th, 2026 Update on the “Lock-in Effect” in the Housing Market: Below-3% & 4% Mortgages Fade Very Slowly - https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/27/update-on-the-lock-in-effect-in-the-housing-market-below-3-4-mortgages-fade-very-slowly/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/27/update-on-the-lock-in-effe... - March 27th, 2026 Prices of New Single-Family Homes Drop Further, Inventory of Completed New Homes for Sale Highest since 2009 - https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/19/prices-of-new-single-family-homes-drop-further-inventory-of-completed-new-homes-for-sale-highest-since-2009/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/19/prices-of-new-single-famil... - March 19th, 2026 Broadly speaking, the current administration has done far more to cool the economy with dysfunctional policy (tariffs, immigration) than the Fed would be able to do with target rates. If you need workers, they exist domestically (based on unemployment rates and job opening statistics as of this comment). Employ them or go without. (lots of parallels in the US residential real estate market to private equity at the moment; valuations are too high and unreasonable with no buyers, and lots of folks disappointed by fundamentals and reality)

jqpabc123 7mo ago
If you want to make housing more affordable, destroy demand for housing in the US. In other words, make the country less prosperous. And by doing this, those hoped for high paying construction jobs may never materialize. As I said, this is not a problem that can be addressed quickly or easily or to anyone's satisfaction.
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  > In other words, make the country less prosperous. Prosperous for who? Shareholders? Asset holders? No loss, citations below. Wages must go up, that is it. And constraining the domestic labor supply is one component of that. "Line go up" is not a serious strategy, "American Prosperity" is a fairy tale told to and believed by the unsophisticated to continue the grift. Prosperity theology at nation state mythology level. > And by doing this, those hoped for high paying construction jobs may never materialize. Jobs will continue to exist so long as demand exists, and wages will be bid up as the US working age population declines, compressing prime working age population cohort (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060). See "The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival" (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6) for details and models on this topic. US Labor Force Demographics Are Worsening - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492787 - March 2026 31% of Wealth Owned by People Over 70 - https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-people-over-70/ https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-... - December 7th, 2025 Investors are making up the highest share of homebuyers in 5 years - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/home-sales-investors-make-up-highest-share-of-buyers-in-5-years.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/home-sales-investors-make-up... - October 8th, 2025 ("Investors continue to own about 20% of the 86 million single-family homes in the country") A Visual Breakdown of Who Owns America’s Wealth - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-owns-americas-wealth/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-o... - March 4th, 2025 The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-... - October 18th, 2021 ("The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks") Per the St Louis Fed: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.stlouisfed.org/institute-for-economic-equity/the-state-of-us-wealth-inequality https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.stlouisfed.org/ins... ("The State of U.S. Wealth Inequality | February 05, 2024") > How much wealth inequality is there in the U.S.? The top 10% of households by wealth had $6.5 million on average. As a group, they held 66.6% of total household wealth. The bottom 50% of households by wealth had $50,000 on average. As a group, they held only 2.6% of total household wealth. (to understand the system, you must decompose the system; the purpose of the system is what it does)