Construction costs
Coming now to construction costs, the higher wages at present paid in the building trades is a well-known fact and needs but little illustration here. In New York City, in 1913, carpenters received $4.50; bricklayers, $6.00; plumbers, $5.50; helpers and laborers, from $2.25 to $3.50 a day, while in 1923 the figures were $10.00, $12.00, $10.00, and from $6.00, to $8.00, respectively. This is to say nothing of the bonuses paid in some trades, reaching as high as $4.00 for masons, plasterers and tilesetters. Although existing rates of wages may be lower in the future, there is small chance of a return to the older relationships. The restriction of immigration has reduced the supply of labor and the competition caused by the steady, less dangerous employment at high wages which is now offered in the factories requires a higher level of reward if American youth are to be attracted into the building industry.
Building materials have not risen in price as much as has labor, but they are, nevertheless, in most cases from 50% to 100% or more above pre-war level. We are now doubtless on a permanently much higher price level than in 1913. At that time, because of disorganization and over-expansion, the materials industry was operating either with little profit or else at a loss. To-day, the higher wages paid for unskilled and semiskilled labor, together with the higher freight rates on railroad, ship and truck—all these factors more than offset any economies which may have been gained through the improvement in methods of mill-production of many important building materials such as steel, lumber, plaster and the metal products.
But the most important factor by far in the low cost of housing construction during the development period of the United States has been cheap lumber. It was cheap lumber, cut by low-priced labor from land of little or no value, and transported at small cost to the home site, which made possible the colossal production of wage-earners' homes in the nineteenth century. But now this tremendous advantage is passing, probably never to return. The cutting away of the forests, together with high wages, higher freight rates and the higher cost of depreciation of timber construction, are putting an end to the superior economy of wood over the other building materials.
Summarizing the result of the increase in building costs, it
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