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I think you're making a correlation/causation error here. Housing benefit has crept up over the years because the property market was inflating steadily and no
by cstross 13y ago
I think you're making a correlation/causation error here. Housing benefit has crept up over the years because the property market was inflating steadily and no government dared bring it back down (middle-class home owners vote to punish governments who hit them in the wallet). Housing benefit rises stuck a plaster on the chest wound by allowing low-income workers (bus drivers, shop assistants, nurses) to live in places where they were needed but could no longer afford to rent or buy.
- ronaldx 13y agoHere's a causation argument: Considering that housing benefit was set for a long time at the median market rate, this surely drove rental prices upward. If landlords know they are guaranteed the median by way of housing benefit, they set their rents at the median (given a housing shortage, they can guarantee to rent out any old dump at the housing benefit rate with no disadvantage: and this is evidenced pretty well by distribution of rent prices), which has driven the median upward - a vicious circle of rent increases.