States Where Construction Wages Are Growing the Most

The U.S. construction industry continues to struggle with a major labor shortage, with an estimated 439,000 more workers needed in 2025 to meet demand. Construction wages have grown in recent years as many employers try to bring in more workers, but growth isn’t equal across the country. To assess where wages are growing the most, Construction Coverage analyzed wage data across each state from 2019 to 2024, in both real terms and in inflation-adjusted terms.

According to the report, the West Coast has seen some of the highest construction wage growth. California, Oregon, and Washington each have cost-of-living-adjusted mean annual wages above $69,000. From 2019 to 2024, Washington's construction wages grew by 2.6%, while Oregon's grew by 3.9%, and California's were up by 3.4% after adjusting for inflation.

Nationally, Illinois pays the most, with an adjusted annual wage of $80,734, followed by Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Still, inflation has eaten into recent wage gains even in these high-paying states. Inflation-adjusted wages in Illinois dropped by 5.7% from 2019 to 2024, and in Alaska, non-adjusted wages fell by 2.1% during this same period.

The fastest real wage growth for construction workers occurred in Maine, where wages rose 9.2% between 2019 and 2024 after adjusting for inflation. Other top performers include Idaho (+6.0%), Florida (+5.8%), and South Dakota (+4.6%). In contrast, half of all states saw inflation-adjusted declines in construction wages during the same period, with the sharpest drops in Connecticut (-7.5%), New York (-6.5%), and Louisiana (-5.9%).