When I pulled up the other day, the crew had just poured a concrete foundation on the vacant ground in Altadena. Two workers are loading equipment onto trucks, and one-third are sitting on fresh cement under the new house.
I asked about the progress of the matter and whether there was any problem with enough workers due to the ongoing immigration raids.
“Oh, yes,” a worker shook his head. “Everyone is worried.”
Another said that when pouring fresh concrete into such a large job, you need 10 or more staff, but this is hard to achieve.
“We’re still working,” he said. “But as you can see, it’s going very slowly.”
Eight months after thousands of homes were destroyed by wildfires, Altadena is still far from any major reconstruction, as is Pacific Palisades. But immigration Raid has hammered California’s economyincluding the construction industry. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week Ethnic Analysis of Green Light With UCLA Anderson predictions Warn us in March.
There is already one Labor shortage In the construction industry, 25% to 40% of workers are immigrants according to various estimates. With the slowdown in deportation, tariffs and trade wars make supplies scarce and more expensive, housing shortages will become a deeper crisis.
Jerry Nickelsburg, a senior economist for Anderson’s forecast, said it was not only their deportation, but their threat. Knicksburg told me that if undocumented people are afraid to show up to install drywall, it “means you are getting the house much slower, which means fewer people are hired.”
Now, I’m not an economist, but in my opinion, it may not be in his best interest to stifle the state with the largest economy in the country after President Trump assured the entire country that we headed to the “golden age” of America’s prosperity.
Especially when many people National economic indicators are not completely optimisticWhen we didn’t see the promise of groceries and consumer goods prices drop, when Labor Statistics is so awkward, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and replaced her with another one, just saw More severe Work number One month later.
I only had one economics class in college, but I don’t remember part of the value of expelling construction workers, drivers, senior staff, butlers, nannies, gardeners, gardeners and other people who commit crimes – unlike the violent criminals we allegedly are willing to show up.
Now, let me give you my email address. It is steve.lopez@latimes.com.
Why should I tell you?
Because I know from experience that some of you are reaching out, itching and itching, telling me that illegal means illegal.
So please keep emailing me, but here is my reply:
We have been lying for decades.
People cross the border because we want them to do so. We almost all beg them. By our meaning, I mean, many industries (many of which are led by conservatives and Trump supporters, including agribusiness, hotels, construction and healthcare.
Why do you have so many Employers avoid using federal electronic verification systems Eliminate undocumented workers? Because they don’t want to admit that many employees do not have documents.
In Texas, Republican lawmakers can’t stop demonizing immigration, they can’t stop filing through dozens of bills that use electronic verification more widely. but The most recent one, like everyone before, was just dead.
Why?
Because the difficult topic is lies and there is no more hypocritical shame. It’s an atmosphere of corruption, and no one can admit something clear in good faith – Texas’s economy is partly supported by an undocumented labor force.
At least in California, Six Republican lawmakers Almost in June, Trump was begging for ease of raids that affected farms, construction sites, and restaurants and hotel operations. Please do honest work on immigration reform instead, they beg so that we can meet our labor needs in a more practical and humane way.
It makes sense, but politically speaking, it’s not as good as TV commercials recruiting ice commandos to raid streets and arresting Tamar suppliers, even if the savages ransacked the Capitol and beat the police enjoyed their time as president to forgive patriots.
Small businesses, restaurants, moms and pop music have all been hit particularly. Maria Salinas, CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce. Then those who survived the pandemic were raided again to surrender.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, Salinas told me: “I think people are worried that it will be harder than before.”
From a broader economic perspective, mass deportation makes no sense, especially when it is obvious Most of the people targeted The violent criminals Trump keeps talking about are not.
Giovanni Peri, director of the Center for Global Immigration at UC Davis, noted that we are in the midst of a demographic transformation, which is addressing the challenges of the aging population and restricted immigration policies.
“We will lose nearly a million Americans every year for the next decade just because of aging,” Perry told me. “We will have a very large elderly population, which will require a lot of services… Home Health Care [and other industries]but fewer and fewer workers are engaged in this type of work. ”
Dowell Myers, a Demologist at the University of Southern California, These trends have been studied for years.
“These numbers are simple and easy to understand,” Myers said. Every year, the proportion of workers to retirees decreases and will continue to do so. This means that even with retired balloons, we will have a serious shortage of workers who pay for social security and health insurance.
If we really want to stop immigration, we should “send all the ice workers to the border. But if you evacuate people who come here for 10 and 20 years and evacuate them, it would be an extreme social cost, and economic cost.”
exist Pasadena Home Depot, Despite the danger of a raid, temporary workers gathered together, and the three men were hopeful about their jobs. Two of them told me they have legal status. “But there is little work,” said Gavino Dominguez.
The third said he had no documents and he left the parking lot and provided services to the contractor.
General contractor Umberto Andrade is loading concrete and other supplies into his truck. He told me that he lost a horrible employee for a week and another lasted for two weeks. They came back because they were desperate and needed to pay the bill.
“The housing shortage in California was already bad before the fire and it’s getting worse now.” Real estate agent Brock Harris, He represents a developer whose Altadena reconstruction project has temporarily slowed down after an ICE agent visit in June.
As building permits begin to flow, Harris said: “It’s not just daunting to get these people to slow down or close the work site.
“But most people on the job site have legal status,” Harris said, “but if the shovel never reaches the ground, everyone will bear the expenses, which is slowing down the reconstruction in Los Angeles.”
There are many bumps on the road to the golden age of prosperity.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
