February 25, 2017
Yes, that is what he told readers in his column. In a column arguing for the need for more immigrants he referred to a figure from the National Association of Home Builders, that there are 200,000 unfilled construction jobs in the United States. Brooks then tells readers:
“Employers have apparently decided raising wages won’t work.
“Adjusting for inflation, wages are roughly where they were [before the crash], at about $27 an hour on average in a place like Colorado. Instead, employers have had to cut back on output. One builder told Reuters that he could take on 10 percent more projects per year if he could find the crews.”
“Raising wages won’t work.” That’s interesting. So if builders paid construction workers the same hourly pay rate as David Brooks, it wouldn’t attract more people to the job? It’s good that we have David Brooks to tell us this, because otherwise most of us wouldn’t know it.
I’m going to take a pass on the larger issue of immigration here (except for the usual call for more immigrant doctors and other high end professionals), but this is just garbage. If builders paid higher wages they would get more people willing to work as construction workers. Can’t Brooks make a more serious argument?
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