Housing/footprint
< Housing
How many resources does it take for people to have housing?
This is a page for some estimates.
Single-detached home
Labor
We could estimate labor by looking at some costs:
- labor costs, obviously
- material costs, because these generally reflect the labor that goes into producing the materials
We don't want to count other costs:
- zoning permits and other bureaucracy - maybe these exist in our current society but they don't have to exist fundamentally - there are probably much more efficient & fair ways to make decisions about housing (or at least, the process could do without bullshit jobs) - so we leave this out.
- land value - this depends on the location and it isn't a reflection of labor requirements. Also we will calculate land in another section anyway. So here we leave this out too.
Housing costs have gone up recently, but this is more a function of demand rather than any inherent increase in the amount of labor needed to build a house.
Quick estimate: How many labor hours go into a house:
house.typical_price_before_covid
400000 $
typical_wages_before_covid
18 $/hour
Average wage of workers in construction, materials production, and other relevant trades
what_fraction_of_costs_reflect_labor
70%
The percentage of costs that fit into the categories we care about (mentioned above: materials and labor)
(calculation loading)
How about labor over time:
family.size
4 people
house.lifespan
80 years
(calculation loading)
Shockingly low. Did I get something wrong?