What are “normal” labor prices? Whatever you want them to be? This is all faulty logic. I live in this world.

I paid a framing crew $24,000 to frame a house. It took them 4.5 days. There were 6 of them. The only “overhead” is the cost of a lift - which is minimal. Guess how many non Hispanics were on the crew? Zero. I’d venture a guess that 100% of them were illegals.

Granted, the guy that speaks english on the crew gets paid more than the others. But being on that crew is a 6 figure job. Do you think that doing manual labor framing houses is way below market prices for labor at $150,000 a year?

How about painters? I just paid a crew $17,000 to paint this house. There were 3 of them. It took them 7 days. Is that way below market price? Guess how many non Hispanics were on that 3 man crew? Zero. And all of them likely illegal.

Speaking of sheet rockers, I paid those guys $14,500 to drywall this house. Took them 1.5 days to hang it, 3/4 of a day to tape and mud, and then they had to come back 3 or 4 trips for a couple of hours to sand and finish. Sure sounds like less than normal labor prices, doesn’t it?

I hired a siding crew to put the cement board siding/metal soffit/fascia on. It cost me $7,800 in labor. It took these 4 guys about 3 days to do it. $650 a day seems too cheap, doesn’t it?

Have you ever thought about how the price of new housing is absurdly high? How can that reconcile with “below normal labor prices” when most of that increase is NOT from the cost of land. This is literally “They took errr jerrrbs!!” Argument. It simply isn’t happening.

This is a supply and demand issue. “Hey lets kick all these illegals out so Americans can get ‘normal market wages’ for labor!” Will result in the average roofer making more than an emergency trauma surgeon or cardiologist. They would not be here at all if not for the fact there is demand that is unmet. That demand is so high they make more than most college graduates. And that demand exists because there is not a “normal wage rate” possible that will get these Americans out of bed. Period. They would rather sit on their asses, smoke weed, knock up obese chicks and not pay for their kids, and get broadcast on LivePD for a domestic incident every Friday/Saturday for our enjoyment.

If this price is “cheap” I am fucked and out of business with further increases. And I doubt you would pay for my product at substantially higher prices. Especially now that mortgage rates are at 20 year highs.

You know where the slave labor comes from? Seasonal farm workers with temporary visas. Those are sub market wages. Have you seen what happens at the meat packing plants in Nebraska? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-dhs-investigating-human-trafficking-children-slaughterhouses-rcna66081

Those places are rackets. The plants NEVER hire anyone. Always a fall guy independent contractor company that “hires” these illegals. These people are defacto slaves. They have to kick back a portion of their ridiculously low wages to the big guy under threat of being handed over to ICE.

Temporary farm workers get $3 an hour because law allows them to duck minimum wage requirements when you provide food and housing. They get gruel and a shanty + back breaking long hours. These are lawful immigrants doing this who then return back to Mexico at the end of the season. Who is hurting wages with that program? Uncle Sam. They gotta go to Mexico and retrieve some people who aren’t already here. Because the illegal Mexicans already here laugh at that wage and went up north to earn big money.