The Texas Builders Association threatens GOP if they take away their cheap foreign labor

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Sure, some of it is, but that unwillingness would shrink with better wages on those jobs.

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Construction labor is already stupid expensive even with illegals.

Yeah the "slave" narrative doesn't work. This isn't the 90s anymore.

From a business perspective is I don't get how they can write off the cash/illegal payments and make it work. If anyone wants to explain that to me, I'm down.

The attack point needs to be benefits. Illegals should not get public benefits

Man Kirk would have been a formidable candidate for 28

The evil really took that chess peice off the board

This is right, our problem isn’t true lack of labor it’s these groups using cheap foreign labor rather it’s illegals or H1Bs.

Same shite that MGT flipped on. It’s pathetic and all of these people are traitors and should face stiff jail time.

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Construction labor is already stupid expensive even with illegals.

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I could tell you the real reasons and it doesn't have much to do with labor cost as it does several other factors

One of the worst factors is the rise of paper contractors and private equity firms both swinging for the fences for huge margins. Both are guilty of pushing roofing replacement prices sky high and ruining that for homeowners. No way should they double their money on a roof job but they do. That's why so many get into it

PE has also been buying up 40-year-old plumbing businesses and raising prices for a long time now. Same with HVAC.

Then there is the workers' comp and GL costs.

Millions of reasons.

Labor factors into it but really the paper contractors could easily take smaller margins.

In what I do, we don't get to charge as high as those guys because rates are set by HUD for standard work, and stuff we bid is guided by a cost estimator that HUD must review and approve, but there is more than enough profit for me after paying my crews, and I don't employ a single foreigner. In fact, all of my crews are subs with their own insurance and employees.

Those guys could absorb some of the pay difference and truthfully, Mexicans aren't that much cheaper anymore. The gap of what a Mexican demands and what an American might demand has shrunk a lot over the years because Mexicans found out how much their bosses were making.

Good insight from inside the industry but I read that as simple functions of capitalism with the PE guys coming in and ramping up margins.

It seems like stronger antitrust regulatory action could curtail some of that but even that has been gutted by this Admin.

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Admin is between a rock and a hard place with transportation costs and materials already being more expensive. If they pulled the rug on cheap labor and costs of projects rose more, that’s a tough sell to most people

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What were labor costs 35 years ago? Were they really that much higher?

If the admin got some control of PE and started hammering them it could then actually deport the cheap foreign labor without big spikes.

Short game it’s a rock and hard place for everyone, take the cheap labor and prices go up but it does benefit Americans paving the way for increased American wages that offset cost.

I’d take temporary price increase if it leads to eliminating people that are undercutting my value.

Now that’s easy for me to say because I have my house and my cars, so short term a small cost rise doesn’t move the meter much. Others not in that position fair worse.

Simply put most illegals have a stolen SSN that they use and they don’t care. Businesses can say they verified the number and move on. My BIL works at a plant in north Alabama that has a few illegals. One pays child support for his #, and he doesn’t care because he is still make more money than ever