Cheaper Food Construction? Forgitaboutit!

Cheaper Food? Construction? Forgitaboutit!

Just when food prices are spiking upwards, housing affordability seems to be skipping most of a generation (or two), rents are skyrocketing, there seems to be no end in sight for rising prices at the grocery store or apartment complex. While office space in most major cities (not NYC) lies way under capacity, there aren’t nearly enough apartment buildings under construction. Add the impact of Trump’s tariffs appear to being born mostly by consumers, and the resulting underlying cost of construction materials, from aluminum and steel to pre-manufactured cabinets – basics in new construction materials – now seriously tariffed, is pushing unaffordable housing costs even higher.

Nevertheless, HIS head, Kristi “puppy killer” Noem, and Immigration Tsar, Tom “money bags” Homan, are hellbent on expanding and further unleashing masked and anonymous quota-driven warrantless ICE sweeps, indiscriminate and mounted with military precision. 70% of the “sweepees” are totally law-abiding, albeit undocumented but highly productive, workers and families. As California is particularly under attack by these Trump administration masters of cruelty, you can watch undocumented firefighters being taken off the line while combatting raging wildfires, clean-up crews looking over their shoulders as they make up the primary work force cleaning up the rubble from the Palisades and Altadena fires, as well as restaurants closing for lack of staff. If you have been fortunate enough to eat out, from a fast-food franchise or a more seated local eatery, you may have noticed major price increases.

Construction sites lie idle, unable to complete basic construction, stopping midstream as illustrated by the above photo of a building site devoid of construction workers. Factories are idled – like the Carolina Hyundai plant that was forced to rely on undocumented South Korean workers when they could not find enough skilled Americans (shuttered as those Korean workers were deported) – and slaughterhouses closing for lack of any American workers to do the required nasty jobs. Likewise, as ICE raiders saturate farms, the purge of these basic workers doing jobs Americans simply will not do, leaves crops rotting on the field. This is particularly devastating for smaller farms with fewer reserves and less access to costly, updated farm equipment.

All of this is rising in a world where, except for behemoth contractors and farmers, these societal basic smaller businesses are not benefitting from the rise of AI solutions and technology. Trump’s pledge to reduce costs lies in tatters under the relentless pursuit of his Project 2025 (now 50% implemented) rightwing purity. The stories from the real world are clear examples of why our basics – food, clothing and shelter – are making paycheck-to-paycheck the new normal, laying increasing challenges to our homelessness crisis. Take this example, multiplied across the nation, among New York State farmers, as described by Dan Gooding, Billal Rahman, and Amanda Castro in the September 9th edition of Newsweek:

“New York's small farms are beginning to feel the strain of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, with experts warning that an industry heavily reliant on undocumented workers needs an urgent solution from Congress… While much of the focus when it comes to immigrants in the Empire State has been the New York City metro area, the state itself is home to as many as 67,000 farmworkers across 30,000 farms mostly upstate and on Long Island.

“‘We are the most important part of the country, because no one can live without food,’ said one Mexican man who has worked in New York for 12 years, speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity. ‘So we can live without a car, without electricity, without many things. But we can't live without food.’ … The human impact of ongoing ICE raids is evident to those working on the ground. Another farm worker in New York, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told Newsweek that ‘cows are going to die’ if the administration's deportations continue across the state… ‘It's a risk every day to go to work. It's a risk to go to the grocery store. It's a risk to drive your kids to school. It's a risk to drive your child to their doctor's appointment,’ the worker told Newsweek… The person said that the farming industry in New York won't be able to function without immigrant workers.”

According to Kristin Toussaint, writing for the October 8th issue of FastCompany.com, “About 40% of farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants, and they’ve become a focus of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Terrorized farmworkers have been forced into hiding, and farms have been left empty because of a scarcity of workers.

“Experts have long warned that Trump’s promise of mass deportations would threaten industries that rely on undocumented workers—like agriculture—and that it could lead to mass disruptions in our food system.

“Now, the Trump administration’s Labor Department seems to be admitting this, too… In a document explaining the administration’s new rule cutting farmworker wages, the Department of Labor writes that the labor shortage, in part due to ‘increased [immigration] enforcement,’ presents ‘a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages. . . . There is ample data showing immediate dangers to the American food supply.’

“‘The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatens the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers,’ per the document… Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), means that this threat will grow, it adds.”

Donald Trump and his mean-spirited senior advisors have become the healthcare, food production and business destroyers that we have not, in American history, ever seen perpetrated by an American president, free of guardrails by a Congress dedicated to raising retained income and wealth for the richest and a Supreme Court dedicated to enable an imperious leadership that is rapidly sinking our economy and political influence even with our traditional allies.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the deer-in-the-headlights complacency of most of the voting public, watching this meltdown before their very eyes in disbelief and denial, just may undo this most noble and accomplished Republic.