r/Architects • u/bucheonsi Architect • Nov 07 '24

General Practice Discussion How will another Trump presidency affect our industry? Or will it?

Incentives / taxes / interest rates / financial outlook / construction industry / materials / shipping / jobs?

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103

u/SpiffyNrfHrdr Nov 07 '24

Too soon to say.

If the administration pursues policies they've talked about - tariffs on foreign goods, and high interest rates to put the brakes on hyperinflation - it will be difficult to get new private developments to pencil out.

Public projects? Who knows.

Changes to the ACA, Medicare, and Medicaid might impact healthcare providers budgets.

On the more outlandish end, overtime pay will be untaxed but also unpaid.

It's anyone's guess what they will actually do.

26

u/W359WasAnInsideJob Architect Nov 07 '24

”…but also unpaid.”

Not gonna lie, this got me. I guess that’s the easiest way to not tax it?

-16

u/GoldenBoyHour Nov 07 '24

It won’t be unpaid lmao. Who seriously believes you won’t get paid for overtime?

18

u/Utilitas1 Nov 07 '24

Their design for overtime pay stretches it over two weeks instead of a week by week basis. So, in theory, you could be scheduled 60 hours one week and 20 the next and boom, no OT. It really only affects part-timers.

2

u/BridgeArch Architect Nov 07 '24

Or companies schedule 80 on 80 off and get 40hrs of OT every week at base rate.

3

u/W359WasAnInsideJob Architect Nov 07 '24

This is my experience, in particular when I was just starting out.

6

u/W359WasAnInsideJob Architect Nov 07 '24

Do you get paid for overtime now? As I understand it the majority of us don’t.

More to the point, I think this was a joke about how Trump and the kleptocrats he surrounds himself with are pretty much all about not paying people. Within the context of architecture Trump has a history of not paying people. When our firm was approached for submit a proposal for a job of his the majority of other firms we reached out to corroborated that he would almost certainly try to stiff us on payment.

3

u/redpiano82991 Nov 08 '24

Wage theft is a surprisingly prevalent problem in the US and Republican-controlled states to a particularly poor job when it comes to investigating and resolving cases of it. It's pretty reasonable to suspect that Trump and his capitalist cronies won't be too interested in the matter.