That’s pretty normal for construction sector helper job starting wages, though, depending on region. Probably shouldn’t be, but is. The nature of federal programs is that they have really strong guardrails to keep their wages on prevailing, which can go both ways and this is the rare occasion of it going a worse way, in my opinion.

Those jobs tend to see significant pay bumps for people who last and are useful.

Not to mention the huge amount of this funding going to green banks. Green banks are just flatly good programs. Highly effective at making renewable projects happen, very high return on investment.