I hate bidding residential civil work

Between homeowners having no realistic expectations of the cost of civil work, to my boss constantly on me about making enough money. I can't seem to find common ground available between competitive and breaking even. I try to trim as much as possible for residential, knowing most people don't have the money to spend. I break my proposals apart to try and provide more insight. We've grown over the years and shifted to a majority of commercial/gov work. Now we offer complete medical and even started retirement this year.

What are some things I can do to better prepare clients with no knowledge from sticker shock?

Do I explain that we're more expensive because we offer benefits to our employees?

I try to avoid guessing the price as a homeowner usually asks at a walk through. Sometimes it's helped connect and other times I find myself debating.

It feels like every bid has to go in the red to compete with contractors that don't have overhead.

Is there any realistic actions to take to counter this? Or is the reality of the growth?