When we think about low-income workers, we usually think about fast-food cashiers or migrant farmworkers, not construction workers. And it's true that skilled trades employees steadily employed in commercial construction work can command respectable, middle-class wages. But it's equally true that millions of workers on the margins of the building industry struggle to put together a living, vexed by irregular demand, low piecework rates, and even wage theft. Adding to their burden, low-income workers and their families suffer greater exposure to illness and injury at home and on the job, resulting in reduced life expectancy.