Dear Governor Brown and California State Legislators:
To solve California’s housing crisis, we must take steps to increase our housing supply and close the affordability gap for working families.
We can make real progress by incorporating prevailing wage standards into state housing reforms.
Housing prices have soared as much as 54% faster than inflation over the past twenty years, but real wages for nearly a million Californians who work in the construction industry have actually declined by 25%. The median wage of $35,000 per year prices most construction workers out of the housing market—particularly in high cost coastal cities.
Housing reforms that fail to include prevailing wage standards will only make these problems worse.
Long associated with more local hiring and stronger economic outcomes, prevailing wages are the local market based minimum wage for skilled construction work. By raising the “floor,” these standards can help close the affordability gap by pulling thousands of construction workers out of poverty and reducing income disparities that disproportionately impact people of color. Real housing reform needs to do more than simply streamline more development. We need to promote investment in the people who are doing the building, and struggling to pay the rent in our communities.