5 ms·
That's probably true, except for one important category of goods that has a tendency to suck as much income from people as they can bear - housing. It is true
by balfirevic 6y ago
That's probably true, except for one important category of goods that has a tendency to suck as much income from people as they can bear - housing.
It is true that with UBI people have the option to move somewhere where housing is inexpensive, but I don't think it's desirable to have people already dependent on UBI move to places with lower economic opportunity - cementing their dependence on it.
That being said, expensive housing is a problem that exists with or without UBI, even if it would interact with it in an unfortunate ways.
- amelius 6y ago> That's probably true, except for one important category of goods that have a tendency to suck as much income from people as they can bear - housing. Exactly. One important piece of evidence is how housing became more expensive when families got double incomes.
- kebman 6y agoIf you own a rental in an inexpensive part of town, or perhaps outside town, and you know a lot of people will be looking for more peripheral and inexpensive places, what would you do with that rental? I think most owners would simply increase rent as demand also increased. It might be slightly beneficial for the price of central apartments, but then most people like the convenience of being close to shops and public communications.
- taneq 6y agoFair point, housing is very close to a zero-sum game, assuming you need to be within commuting distance of a population center to work. It'll be interesting to see how a combination of UBI and increasingly available remote work affects the geographic distribution of property prices. We're not short on land area to build houses, after all - we're only short on land nice and close to economic centers.
- dhbradshaw 6y agoUBI will partially decouple housing demand from work locations. This could raise prices in rural areas and lower them in cities.
- CuriousSkeptic 6y agoOne of the reasons to use housing as a financial source for UBI. An LVT-like approach could capture the full market value of housing (land really) and tunnel it back into the economy as a public dividend, an UBI. It would be a bit different from the current inheritance based land value extraction since it would go to everyone instead of the lucky owners. I think it could be positive change though.
- nicbou 6y agoHealthcare, education, nursing and any other industry affected by cost disease likely won't get any cheaper either.