Re:What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
by Zanni on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @02:15AM
(#22602234)
You make a good case why UBI might not affect rent in high-rent areas, but what makes you think there would be a place where housing costs are $300 a month when everyone has UBI? Why wouldn't the floor immediately become $1000 everywhere?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
In the hypothetical case where the minimum rent in the entire US becomes $1000 (and the laws of supply/demand have not magically disappeared), then that means all of the livable areas in the country have been revitalized enough to demand such a price. Considering how poorly many rural and exurban communities have fared in the last few decades, that feels like a nice problem to have.
Its also worth mentioning that the US is very big and there are a lot of places that are just not that attractive to live in[1]. So I feel like it will be quite a while before we get to that point.
And a final point. UBI is not meant to provide free rent. It is a form of social welfare and safety net. The fact that the real estate market is so imbalanced in the US is a failure of capitalism (why aren't startups and companies moving to low-cost of living areas?) And the fact that UBI can help bring some balance to real estate markets is nice side benefit, but its main goal it to act as a counter weight to the ruthlessness of market economies.