> It's actually true that rising wages result in higher rents.

It's true in places with a constrained housing supply, i.e. restrictive zoning. Which is common in urban areas. But what you have there is a zoning problem, not a UBI problem -- evidence being that it's also true of higher wages and lower unemployment etc.

In unconstrained areas higher demand for housing causes more housing to be built, which prevents housing costs from absorbing anywhere near 100% of the new money.

Those less restrictive areas are not always where people want to live. The people advocating for UBI are often not the same people that are OK with poor people being priced out of an area and moving into lower-cost areas.

I think it's more likely we'll see UBI proponents want to factor in a cost of living adjustment based on the place one lives, which will be a nightmare of political administration and unintended consequences.

> Those less restrictive areas are not always where people want to live.

Then remove the restrictions in the places people do want to live.

> I think it's more likely we'll see UBI proponents want to factor in a cost of living adjustment based on the place one lives, which will be a nightmare of political administration and unintended consequences.

Terrible idea, do not want.

Agreed that there's additional margin we can get with less restrictive zoning, but land is ultimately supply constrained. More importantly, high-quality (previously defined as arable, now defined as "close to good jobs/services") is certainly constrained as a matter of physical distance.

Land is supply constrained, which causes housing to cost more in urban areas because constructing taller buildings costs more. But the limit on housing supply even in urban areas, absent restrictive zoning, would be that construction cost at any plausible level of demand.

We know how to build 100 story buildings but there is no place on earth where you can find a hundred square miles of nothing but 100 story buildings.

I don't follow that. HQ2 was about creation of new jobs and immigration of more people into the area.

For a fixed supply, higher rents are caused by a larger number of people demanding housing at the current prices. Higher wages only affect that by (a) causing immigration into the area, or (b) raising people out of poverty so that they can afford housing when they couldn't before.

Hypothetical landlord: “All my tenants are now earning an additional $1k per month and nothing prevents me from raising prices. But I won’t raise rents because... reasons.”

Because the apartment next door would be $1000 cheaper and tenants would leave and go there.

Even where there are housing supply constraints, they still can't raise rents by the full $1000/month because that would give tenants $1000/month more incentive to move to a different city without housing supply constraints.

By how much absolutely does rent go up vs how much the wage has risen? Are the people better off or not? Don't just say rising rents as a catch all. This is all the more case for UBI vs rising minimum wage because in UBI there aren't the unemployed falling through the cracks.

> It's actually true that rising wages result in higher rents.

Do you have a study you can point to, since this is trivial?

Aside from self-evident truth, here's a study on just the impact of rising wages for the absolute lowest wage earners: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/94238/1/MPRA_paper_94238.pdf

> I empirically analyze the causal impact of the minimum wage increase on housing rents in the United States and Japan. In both countries, minimum wages hikes increase housing rents in urban areas: 10% minimum wage increase induces 1%-2% increase in the United States and 2.5%-5% increase in Japan.

Now imagine a 10% raise for every earner.

> 10% minimum wage increase induces 1%-2% increase in the United States

This shows that absolute rent is going up. Relative rent, the proportion of income going to rent, is going down. This frees up folks' money for other things and improves living conditions.

> Now imagine a 10% raise for every earner.

If everybody made the same exact amount, that would be relevant. With a $25k UBI, you'd see folks who previously earned $50k getting a 50% raise and those making $500k getting a 5% raise. Right now, people in poverty are often spending 40-60% of their income on rent. Not so of people making $500k.