While construction employment has mainly recovered from pandemic setbacks, wage and permitting trends give insight on which market is the strongest for remodeling and construction business owners and workers.
While across the board construction workers report a median annual wage of $58,360. This is about 18% higher than the $49,500 median for all U.S. workers.While looking at the Construction Coverage analysis of BLS & BEA data,  Illinois leads with median annual wage of $79,328. This trend stays true across the Midwestern states,  Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Ohio rank in the top 10 for wages. While Texas and Florida rank among the lowest.
“However, among large metropolitan areas with populations over one million, a number of coastal cities also rank highly despite their high living costs,” said Jonathan Jones of Construction Coverage. “These include San Jose, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and New York.”
According to U.S. Census report data, Dallas, Texas issued over 66,000 permits between January and November 2024. However Rhode Island, Wyoming, Montana, Delaware and Illinois saw the largest percent increase over 2023 for new residential construction.
Definitely announcing one market might be impossible, but trends are strong in the success of the midwest.
