From Construction Coverage:
Construction Coverage, a website that provides construction software and insurance reviews, just released a new study about how many weekly work hours construction workers need to afford median-priced homes across the U.S. Complete data for the Asheville, NC metro is below, after a brief overview of the analysis.
Federal funding for infrastructure projects has surged in recent years: since 2021, Congress has allocated more than $550 billion for rebuilding and expanding critical infrastructure. Due to this spending growth and a persistent inability to recruit and train the next generation of construction workers, the construction industry is facing a major worker shortage. One industry trade association estimates 454,000 new workers will be required, on top of normal hiring, to meet the booming demand in 2025.
However, despite this substantial need, elevated home prices, inadequate homebuilding pace, and wages failing to keep pace with inflation are making it difficult for construction workers to afford to purchase a home in the cities where they work.
Construction wages and housing affordability vary by location, however. Researchers ranked metros according to the number of weekly work hours needed for a construction worker earning the median hourly wage to afford a median-priced home in their location, spending no more than 30% of their income on housing.
Asheville, NC:
- Construction workers in the Asheville metro earn a median hourly wage of $22.69.
- Meanwhile, the monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced home in the Asheville metro stands at $2,257.
- This means that construction workers in the Asheville metro, assuming they are spending no more than 30% of their income on housing, would have to work 77 hours a week to afford a median-priced home—almost double a typical 40-hour work week, and the 15th most among all midsize metros in the country.
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