The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

Re:The first results from the biggest basic income experiment by judofyr on Sunday December 03, 2023 @12:07PM (#38508603)

"Well, I'm a [store, café, bar, gym, etc] owner and I know that my customers now earn an additional $600/mo, and every other customer in my market is also earning an addition $600/mo, I would be an idiot not to raise my prices by $600/mo, and so would every other owner."

"Oh, also, I'm building a new set of apartments and I discovered that when I set the rent to today's price + $300/mo then suddenly everyone was interested since everyone else on the market now takes +$600/mo."

Yes, inflation is a real concern which should be discussed, but "duh, all the money will just go to X" is far too a simplistic argument.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The first results from the biggest basic income experiment by ethanbond on Sunday December 03, 2023 @12:13PM (#38508661)

Store, cafe, bar, gym owners will try to raise their prices, and they’ll succeed (obviously not everyone independently by the $UBI amount).

But then ya know what will happen? The store, cafe, bar, and gyms’ landlords will raise their rent accordingly and eat approximately all of the gains that came from their price increases.

Why on earth do you think rent is so expensive near high-productivity? The buildings aren’t better. The land itself isn’t higher quality. The landlords aren’t better. It’s more expensive because it can be due to the market’s productivity, and corollary ability to pay high prices.

[ Parent | on HN ]