The Dockworker Strike May Be Over, But the Effects Threaten to Stall New Home Construction

Kamala Harris has pledged to build 3 million new homes. But her fumbling of the Longshoremen union’s strike has already torpedoed that plan

The Longshoremen's strike may have ended on its third day, but the shutdown left key construction imports stranded on cargo ships instead of making their way to developers—and the result could be devastating for would-be homebuyers.

Restoration News calculates that over $113 billion in wood and metal construction products flows through the 14 shuttered ports to construction sites throughout the Southeast and East Coast, which also import close to $17 billion in furniture each year. Without them, home development will grind to a halt—as will Kamala Harris’ half-baked plan to build 3 million new houses if she’s elected president.

Worse, experts estimate that each day the ports are closed will require as much as 6 days of catch-up time—totaling just over 3 weeks as of writing. At least 45 container ships are stuck outside the striking ports and could double by the end of the week.

This crisis could have been averted by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act, which would delay negotiations by 80 days while keeping the ports open. Yet neither Harris nor President Biden opted to do so, indicating their support for the striking dockworkers’ absurd demands over everyday voters.

That’s bad news for every consumer, but it’s especially troubling for the millions of Americans struggling to become homeowners. The nation currently faces a housing shortage of 4.5 million homes, massively driving up home values beyond what most people can afford. 86 percent of renters say they can’t afford to buy a home. 54 percent believe they’ll never be able to afford one.

(RELATED: POLL—North Carolina Seniors Overwhelmingly Believe Trump, Not Harris, Will Defend Social Security and Medicare)

67 million U.S. households—about half the country—can’t afford a $250,000 house. That’s driven in large part by inflation cutting wages below the $46,000 needed to afford a $150,000 home with a 6.5 percent interest rate—a rate itself driven up in response to soaring inflation caused by the Harris-Biden administration’s reckless government spending.

In response, Kamala Harris has proposed a $25,000 down payment assistance for “first-generation homebuyers,” targeting immigrant and non-white Americans as part of her DEI agenda. It’s Affirmative Action for homebuyers that could end up benefiting the 16 million illegal aliens who’ve crossed her open border since 2021, not the families who need the most help. Worse, Harris’ plan would simply raise home prices by $25,000—subsidizing sellers with yet more inflation-driving spending taken from the taxpayers.

Harris also plans to build 3 million new houses over the next 4 years, with little in the way of particulars—private developers, not the government, are responsible for construction—but experts have pointed out that the down payment subsidy plan could cost $500 billion due to high construction and material costs, which more government spending will only exacerbate.

What does half a trillion dollars net you? Extremely small or low-quality homes. The Hoover Institution calculates that the 20 million households likely to receive Harris’ subsidy will only be able to afford a $146,000 home—vastly below the median U.S. home price of $412,000.

“Because renters tend to have low household incomes, Harris also proposes to give tax incentives to builders to construct ‘starter homes,’ provided those new homes are sold to first-time homebuyers,” the group observes. “The reason that ‘starter’ (small) homes are in scarce supply is because it isn’t very profitable for builders to develop small homes.”

There is no plan to reduce housing costs, only to raise the cost of everything. And when it comes to screwing consumers and taxpayers, Kamala Harris has proven herself unparalleled.

(READ MORE: The Harris Port Shutdown Cost Americans $6.3 Billion Each Day)