Since the incoming administration has indicated the deportations will start on day one, I thought it of use to consider the sectoral impacts of a policy of mass deportation (aside from macro based ones as discussed here<\/a>).<\/p>\n First, I consider two graphs from Pew that Torsten Slok\/Apollo has recently sent out.<\/p>\n Note the relatively more substantial shares of unauthorized workers in agriculture and construction overall. Within agriculture, consider the shares in food production\/food processing.<\/p>\n Second, two observations. If the Trump administration really wants to do something about grocery prices and housing affordability (I must confess I am dubious they care at all about these things), then a policy of mass deportation of unauthorized workers will certainly work against those goals. (If the administration were to proceed on denaturalization as proposed in Project 2025<\/a> pp. 143-44, well heck, I have no idea what would happen, quantitatively).<\/p>\n First, think construction costs. A big input is labor (and others include imported products like lumber \u2014 so I\u2019m not even considering tariffs). Here\u2019s the evolution of real wages for construction:<\/p>\n Figure 1:<\/strong> Quarter-on-Quarter CPI deflated wage growth in construction, annualized (blue). Source: BLS via FRED, and author\u2019s calculations.<\/em><\/p>\n Hence, housing construction costs will jump up in real terms.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/immigrants_by_industry.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/immigrants_by_foodindustry.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/constructionwagegrowth.png\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/foodmfgwagegrowth.png\")
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