The survey also shows that wage arrears for migrant workers in the construction industry remain serious: fewer than one-fifth receive their wages monthly, fewer than one-tenth receive overtime pay, and 12% of migrant workers did not receive their wages for even a whole year; as many as 80% of construction migrant workers saw their wages lag behind price increases, and one-third had no wage growth.

For some time, the topic of “high pay” for construction migrant workers has remained heated, with both supporters and opponents, but this survey proves that whether measured by income per unit time or total income, these construction workers' wages are far from the “high pay” circulated online, not to mention the widespread problems of wage arrears and difficulty in getting pay raises. The so-called high pay is merely a myth.

In recent years, the treatment of rural construction workers has indeed improved relatively quickly. Besides the large demand for labor in the construction market, another important factor is that few people are willing to do this work because it is arduous, dangerous, and offers low social security. Today, the workers busy at construction sites are basically rural adults in their forties and fifties; they often have no leisure life and lack social recognition, and apart from working, they just eat and sleep. Although they are among the highest-paid types of migrant workers, it is very rare for children to follow their fathers into this field.

In recent years, although the topic of “high pay for construction workers” has been widely discussed, the public still has its own judgment about the real value of such “high pay” and whether it is worth envying. An online survey asking “Would you be willing to carry bricks for a monthly salary of 7,000 yuan?” showed that nearly 70% said “no.” The reason this topic triggers so many sour comments is not envy or jealousy of migrant workers' “high pay,” but rather that in an era of high prices and housing prices, people are “moved by the scene” and sigh helplessly over their own low wages and slow growth.

In fact, if construction workers, as a diligent and hardworking social group, could truly earn high pay and live the kind of life enjoyed by urban residents or even white-collar workers, that should be a blessing for society. It would not only reflect market pricing, without hidden tricks such as unfair distribution or self-serving power, but also show people the hope that hard work can lead to prosperity. Although the more than 200 million migrant workers, including many construction workers, have made enormous contributions to urban prosperity in the most basic positions and the harshest working environments, reality gives them little recognition: on the one hand, because their work is low-end and lacks technical content, their role is easily overlooked; on the other hand, due to household registration barriers caused by the urban-rural dual structure, the lack of security in education, housing, medical care, and pensions, and issues such as unequal pay for equal work, they remain in a weak and deprived state for a long time.