Does that happen with any other product? Are other consumer products priced based on calculation of consumers' incomes, or are they priced based on demand and competition in the market? I think rent in high-COL cities is more determined by high demand there than landlords' personal assessment of the residents' average incomes. With UBI, people would be more free to move away from areas with high rent. There could be more free competition on housing/rent across the whole country, which might drive down rents.
>I think rent in high-COL cities is more determined by high demand there than landlords' personal assessment of the residents' average incomes.
A landlord doesn't have to personally assess the average income of the residents. The high demand will roughly do the assessment for them.
>With UBI, people would be more free to move away from areas with high rent.
This is something UBI allows, but I'm skeptical whether people will actually do that. Remote work also allows people to do that, but until the virus it hadn't really been considered as a serious option in the vast majority of workplaces.
>Remote work also allows people to do that, but until the virus it hadn't really been considered as a serious option in the vast majority of workplaces.
Yes but the cruical difference is that now, if I ask for remote work to move and the company says no I have to choose between having and income and moving. With UBI they say "no" I say "ok" and have income to fall back on.
The key thing UBI enables is the ability to meaningfully make a choice to leave your current job if you want to without destroying your ability to keep yourself alive.
I would wonder what limitations UBI would require. What if people get UBI in US and move to a low cost Asian or African country to live princely lives with their UBI while American taxpayers pay for that lifestyle.
My personal guess is that it won't happen on a large scale. After all, most people feel connected to the places where they live and to the people around them. Moving to another country can be difficult if the divide (language, religion, customs, political system and its stability, law, personal and property rights, safety) is wide. This seriously limits the choice of places people would be willing to move to long-term in the first place. Historically, large-scale permanent migrations happened only if living conditions in the place of origin became hostile.
Also, where would people move to? Many destinations are developing countries and thus the cost of living there will rise in the long term. Also, these expats would be heavily affected by foreign exchange rates.
People might indeed cluster up in certain places, buy property there and live a leisurely livestyle. These factors would make prices rise and in the long term it would become less attractive to move there. This happened in Spain where property prices in premium locations have skyrocketed because of well-off people from other EU countries buying homes there. Depending on how much the goverments of the target countries care about this, they might think about countermeasures, such as restricting property acquisition to locals.
If the outflux of money becomes significant, it will affect relations with the target country as the origin country will seek to reverse the flow. Trade deals will be affected, and developmental aids, if there are any, might be reduced. If it works, the target country might make it more difficult for expats to stay long-term. But the most straightforward approach might be to limit the UBI based on residency, or make the expat lose perks such as voting rights.
higher education in ALL colleges is priced in a similar way. They've all raised their prices in accordance with the amount of money the government is willing to guarantee kids will have access to.
For the most part I agree, however community colleges usually offer very cheap prices, even more so if you are a resident of the state or country which it resides in.
> This is something UBI allows, but I'm skeptical whether people will actually do that
I am a supporter of the UBI theory but I have to say I am skeptical of the implementation. People are usually incentivized to move towards the places that provide opportunity - jobs, education, etc. UBI might dampen that incentive.
Given that most leadership systems are strongly influenced by the rich I have to wonder whether a system like UBI will be implemented in such a way that people are less dependent on the rich rather than actually becoming even more dependent.
demand for housing is somewhat inelastic though. It will only increase to the point where homeless people can now afford to rent a room somewhere. UBI would only significantly increase demand if it was so much money that a lot of people would be looking to buy second or third homes.
The problem, in the end, is the other side of that inelastic demand.
Everyone needs to live somewhere. Landlords only profit if their properties are occupied, but they can simply decide to all increase their rent by $1000 a month, knowing that eventually, the only choice for some people will be to pay it or be homeless.
I have no idea if it would actually work this way in practice.
Education is priced based on what rich international students can pay, then most domestic students get massive subsidies. I don't think it's a reasonable comparison.
Rent is based on demand and competition in the market, which is why it reflects consumers' incomes. That's the entire problem with UBI: it will just result in widespread inflation, in housing and every other market. The only way to keep rents from rising so rapidly is for people to be able to own the properties where they live.
(This does, indeed, fall under "some form of socialism" that the author deems magically "unworkable." Simply a tax code of affordable taxes for personal property - i.e. a home you own and live in - and high taxes for private rental property used to make a profit, with the intent that it should make financial sense to sell to an owner who will live in it.)
==That's the entire problem with UBI: it will just result in widespread inflation, in housing and every other market.==
Do you have any evidence to support this type of absolute claim? People have been screaming about inflation since the Fed massively expanded their balance sheet in 2007. The only things we’ve really seen inflate are assets (buying housing, stocks, etc.) we haven’t seen much inflation in non-assets (renting, commodities, consumer staples).
I think it's mostly location-based. NYC, Seattle, San Fran, Austin, Denver, Boise and more cities have seen significant rent increases. On the other hand, we have Rust Belt cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, and more where rents haven't risen at the same rate.
Edit to add some specificity, although it's not "rent". Here [1] is a 3 bed/2 bath house in a very safe Chicago neighborhood for $325k. The local public elementary school is an 8/10 and the high school a 7/10.
If a significant number of readers here on HN click that link, driving traffic to that specific listing, I wonder if it would cause the agent to think there's more interest in the home than there really is, giving them the suggestion that they should increase the price.
It does have a "HOT HOME" banner on the first picture. Could that be from HN readers?
Let's implement income caps for all Bay Area tech company employees at $75k. Then landlords will lower rent and the housing price issue will be solved. /s
Max incomes and max wealth seem like excellent ideas. It should be gradual tho. I would like to see a basic income start at 50 or 100 bucks. That way we can see some of the effect and deal with it. It would at least reveal how hard it is to implement.
Sounds like a problem that you could also solve via things like universal rent control. Lock the rent of all units. If you're not happy with the rental income of a unit, you're free to sell it to someone who wants to buy a primary residence.
Nothing, because UBI+salary = previous salary. So everyone's part of income available for paying rent is the same.
Only difference is that the guy who earns $2500 right now might be able to get a better job because he can quit without immediately losing his apartment.
I can't see inflation not catching up with whatever UBI provides within couple of years. In the example above, rent will go obviously up, as will prices of products and services. When everybody has more money, I for sure can ask for more for my services/products.
As for dependency, the money won't magically spawn on the table, they will be earned by state on taxes and then paid to citizens/residents. So you depend on who is in power anyway since there will be many rules, exceptions etc. It brings another new universe for corruption, leftist politicians to promise (and deliver) higher payments that next generations will have to pay back and so on...
All these mental games, me, you, everybody... we can't get the full picture of everything mixing up with everything else - economy, mentality of individual and groups, greediness, black swan events, selfishness etc. and come up with a nice simulation how it will end up all joined together. That's just wishful thinking and people pick up side which they prefer, nothing more.
I'm not sure how this works in the US, but in other countries there are laws against such increases in rent - especially 'social' rent for those with low income.
In most of the US, I believe there are no laws. California recently passed some legislation limiting rental increases per year, but it's still something like 7-8%, which is ludicrous.
The first world country I'm from has, effectively, nation-wide rent control (varies by region) and rent increases are limited to something around 1%, set each year (tracking inflation somewhat).
In the US, this will work very poorly: a landlord can just bump your rent by exactly the UBI amount and get away with it. Otherwise, they would have to wait for a vacancy to set the rent. But eventually, I agree that the rent would just absorb the UBI in many cases.
In the country I live, rent is indexed and adjusted to inflation on an yearly basis. When the contract expires, parties have the chance to negotiate rent value at contract renewal to either increase it or decrease it.
Many big cities in the US have forms of rent control. Usually this is tied to a particular tenant, if the old tenant moves out the landlord can charge a market rate.
Perhaps nothing, his tenants will likely move to apartments in better neighborhoods, or, buy their own homes. He'll need to keep rents the same to continue to attract replacement tenants.
So demand for cheap apartments fall and prices stagnate. But you can't just think about one step, you have to consider the implications of that step.
For example, if people are moving out of their bad apartments into nicer apartments and homes, demand for nice apartments and homes will increase, driving prices higher. Which makes sense--suddenly there is much more money available for housing. But that's not the end of the story, either.
What is the incentive for the owners of small apartment complexes? It seems clear. They need to renovate their apartments so that they can capture the new up-market demand. Successful, mid-tier apartments could buy up cheaper complexes to renovate them and charge higher prices (this happens even now).
The low-demand, low-price alternatives will fade away, because the land owners can make more money with slightly nicer, more expensive units.
Why would the low-price apartments see lower demand? There’s going to be a huge number of folks who are now making a low income looking for housing. Many of these people are currently either totally unhoused or living with family/friends because they can’t afford even low-price places. If there’s a huge new demand won’t apply in fact increase?
They'll buy their own homes? Through cheap government sponsored mortgages? Add that to the list of government spending that will expand under UBI.
They'll move to better neighborhoods? What's going to happen to the people living in those neighborhoods? It's not like there are houses sitting vacant...
Sure, no government incentives required. The median home price in the US is $226,000.
A typical mortgage payment on that mortgage is $1,100.
Adding $1,000/month will put many renters above the minimum income they'd need. Keep in mind, a married couple will be getting $2,000/month.
There will be vacancies for the same reasons. People moving up-market.
Highest end homes will also increase in value. Everybody moves up, and homeless folks who are homeless due to loss of income will have a place to live.
The majority of our mortgage market is govt guaranteed at artificially low interest rates (i.e. the US govt is taking losses on the time value of that money)- that was my point.
Everybody moves up- meaning more homes being built- so you'd expect this to increase house production in the US, correct?
So, despite a disincentive for low payed laborers (like those who do construction) to go to work, the housing market will not just continue, but actually become more productive?
That $1100 a month- doesn't include home insurance, doesn't include property taxes, and assumes a $60k down payment, correct? Seems like a charitable number to pick.
Artificially low interest is not a guarantee. It's an opportunity for the time being.
They are already paying rent, and if married, they get $2,000.
If their rent is $600, they would have $2,000/month to save a down payment and then have $2,600 to buy a median priced home. That's enough to cover insurance and property taxes.
The standard down payment is 20%, so a $226k home would be $45,200.
What if every landlord but one raised the price by 1000 a month, and that one realized he could get more business by raising only 900 a month, so in response to that one landlord others lowered to only +800 so the one countered with +700... Etc. Etc.
This argument would be much more persuasive if each landlord could supply an effectively unlimited supply of housing. As things currently stand, a landlord reducing his rent would clear his limited inventory first, but the broader effects of the actions of a single agent would be fairly muted.
Sure, in theory you can eminent domain a neighborhood of low density housing and replace it with higher density housing. In practice though, its politically impossible most places.
Raising rent ... and building more houses. Raising rent skews incentive significantly towards renting. Eventually the market becomes efficient as supply outstrips demand and rent sinks again.
With an ability to command higher rent, renting becomes profitable on properties that were previously not profitable to build on. In the long run, I expect rent to fall relative to the current state of affairs as housing is overprovisioned (using the added income from more rent) and moves more towards a buyer's market. Furthermore, with UBI workers are in a stronger negotiating position so we'll see more work from home which also lowers rent by reducing competition in the cities.
As a former landlord I’d do the same thing I did then - keep my price low if I like my tenant or increase / not renew the lease to kick them out essentially. There’s a lot of variables to pricing for different kinds of landlords.
It’s also illegal / breach of contract to increase rent based upon a person’s increased income as well unless it’s outside a lease period. I was told this as a landlord and I was mostly interested in getting a good tenant rather than trying to get the most dollars anyway. A bad tenant costs you far, far more than whatever you’d have increased your rent by.
It's mentioned in the article indirectly: when you enable consumers to demand more, you increase competitive pressures amongst producers as well. Your landlord raises your rent by $1000? That's fine: you move to another town that's cheaper. Landlords are no longer competing within a town or city; now, they're competing with landlords every where else.
> That's fine: you move to another town that's cheaper
This is a pretty privileged perspective to have and shows that you may not fully grasp what it's like to be poor.
Do you understand the costs of moving (both monetary and time spent)? Do you understand the cost of most likely having to quit and find a new job (if they are available)? do you understand the costs (socially and mentally) of having to leave your community/family of support?
The opportunity cost of what you are suggesting makes it much less feasible than you make it seem
One of the benefit of UBI—indeed, for some people, one of the explicit purposes of UBI—is that it drastically reduces the need to fear that moving will be too expensive for you.
It is, of course, possible to implement a UBI that is too low to make it practical to move, but I would argue that in that case, it is missing the "Basic" part, because it does not provide enough to meet real people's Basic needs.
I think the concern many people have (and rightfully so) is that the economy is not a static system. Any artificial offsets (UBI) will just get priced into every agent's value calculation.
The thing that gives "Capital" power is that you have it, no one else does, and you're trying to transform it into some arrangement that over time creates more value than it consumes.
The transformation applied can absolutely be done incorrectly, making subsequent capital value transformations more difficult to accomplish profitably given greater constraints on the means the capital allocator can bring to bear.
Nothing about UBI substantially changes the nature of that system, therefore, the real problem to be solved, (the asymmetry of means between capital allocators) given a system that optimizes toward capital control centralization (more capital fewer hands) without also being paired with wealth ceilings via tax extraction at the top and reinjection at the bottom.
> is that it drastically reduces the need to fear that moving will be too expensive for you
Sure, that would definitely be one area where UBI would assist with but as I mentioned in another comment - it would kind of defeat the purpose of the UBI if people had to spend it on mitigating the consequences of people taking advantage of them receiving UBI
The empowerment of poor people to move may be enough to just discourage landlords from raising rents in the first place. It's like when workers join unions and increase their bargaining power: even those not in the union benefit.
The pro UBI arguments completely miss the 2nd level effects - the predators will come out in droves and the less intelligent will be conned into long term contracts that consume their entire UBI. UBI is a gift to the wealthy - it gives them a huge pool to steal from.
Possibly, but that sounds like a problem which could be solved separately, perhaps with stricter laws about what constitutes an onerous contract; we need not discount UBI entirely because it causes some problems, since the problems UBI causes might be better than the problems we have without UBI, and the problems with UBI might be easier to solve.
If the issue of predator treatment of consumers were addressed first, a large amount of the pressure for UBI will evaporate. The poor are poor due to predator capitalism, not due to any lack of skills on their behalf.
It might be that UBI is politically potentially possible, while the other issues are not politically viable to solve in the present situation. Politics is the art of the possible.
Being poor isn't a lack of intelligence, it's a lack of money. No doubt a few people will get conned out of their money, but for the majority it would be a net positive to have more money at their disposal.
That will absolutely happen sometimes the question is how common it will be vs how many other people will be able to use those resources to get themselves into a better situation.
Even if the cost of moving/visiting family were offset by the rent savings - which very possibly would not be - it would kind of defeat the purpose of the UBI if people had to spend it on mitigating the consequences of people taking advantage of them receiving UBI
oof. Ignoring the uncomfortable and unsympathetic assumptions you are making, I will again reiterate what I have in other comments:
it would kind of defeat the purpose of the UBI if people had to spend it on mitigating the consequences of people taking advantage of them receiving UBI
Your argument makes no sense. We can just replace "UBI" with "job".
It would kind of defeat the purpose of making money with a job if people had to spend their earned money on mitigating the consequences of people taking advantage of them receiving money.
So... the takeaway is strive to earn less so you get preyed on less?
I don't agree. Jobs are much more than just income. They provide purpose, skills (possibly for life and future work), experience (in general and for acquiring future work), possible medical or investment benefits, connections (social and for future work) etc. All these things mean that there are many situations where earning less or having to move would be outweighed by the benefits.
This is not the case in my example - UBI is JUST income. If the providing of UBI creates more problems and negates the income, then it loses its benefit and purpose (not saying this would be a guaranteed problem inherent to UBI, but that was the premise of the OP)
I would suggest that, whether or not you identify with/have been part of a group, you consider that your perspective/experience very possibly is not the experience of everyone else in that group.
Wouldn't that only work if the other town didn't also have UBI? I think the conjecture is that if everyone, everywhere is suddenly guaranteed to have a certain minimum amount of money per month then landlords everywhere are going to raise rents. Who are the landlords that are just going to leave money sitting on the table at a cost to themselves? The only thing that could counter this reliably would be an increase in housing supply.
I actually think that would be a better solution than UBI, figure out what American public housing has done wrong (namely the idiotic towers in a park idea) and fix it, say by producing lower density functional neighbourhoods that have proper streets, places for business, community services, etc. and just build masses of them. Housing is the biggest cost after all and it's a large public works project that could be carried out everywhere. You'd have to fix the problem of corruption in projects of that nature though and that's unfortunately a much bigger challenge.
> figure out what American public housing has done wrong (namely the idiotic towers in a park idea) and fix it
I think an issue with this approach is that it's top down, as as mentioned in the article, "those at the top can’t manage all the information about the economy".
A counter-argument may be to just let towns and cities decide what to develop then, since local people have the best information about their neighborhoods. However, 1. this is already the default method and has resulted in housing crises where NIMBYism is rampant. 2. UBI would also help in this case as you're increasing the demand for housing while increasing competition between people living there and not (assuming people want to move to the area in the first place).
Job is one part of life. A human is not like a variable in program that can be refactored into another class as needed.
What you are saying would work perfectly for a young college graduate, without much family or friends, who has no dependency or no one dependent on them.
Now imagine a young single mother or father that depends on their family for babysitting or caring for the child while they try to become functioning member of society.
Imagine someone with some health condition that needs access to certain medical facilities.
People live in cities and migrate to cities because they can access schools, colleges, entertainment, public transport, medical facilities, better opportunities, parks etc etc. They can't just pick and move and uproot themselves.
I think people who work in technology do not have enough exposure to the poor and struggling members of the society. I grew up in a really really poor family and when I talk to my coworkers it is very apparent that they don't understand poor people.
Even moving somewhere else within the same city is a lot less hassle if you are less concerned with immediately having the work part of the equation figured out.
I am not a young graduate, uprooting now would be a big deal for various reasons. Neither are my friends in their 30's raising families - some of which are living with their parents for the kind of reasons you describe.
My point is that without being so close to the financial edge all the time, even less well off families can take a step back and make decisions that work best for the future. The stress associated with risk (like quitting a job) results in a scary amount of lock in for many people I know.
It's not a feasible solution for _everybody_. However on the net, by giving that option to _all_ renters, you will discourage the population of landlords from increasing rent in general.
On the anecdotal other hand, I've moved eighteen times in my life. Some of us not only don't mind, but given the opportunity, enjoy new places and new situations.
Did each of those moves include raiding the dumpsters for boxes? Enlisting others to help pack and move? And taking a year of savings to cover a deposit?
But you're making a straight-up Maoist argument here. You are arguing that the rent-seeker class (quite literally) are so uncontrollably avaricious that there is no way to moderate them: logically, they must be destroyed and we must go with communism because there is NO possible balance to be struck between rent-seekers and proletariat.
I'm pretty lefty but I sure wouldn't go so far as that. Tell them not to bleed the tenants totally dry. Try making rules. Try enforcing rules. If that doesn't work, THEN we can talk along 'kill all the landlords' lines, but I am just not convinced it's that simple.
I think there is room in a liberal market capitalist system with social supports (such as UBI, which is nothing more than a lower overhead social welfare system) to allow people to have property and stuff without it automatically going to Mao's worst nightmares. Yes, people are greedy, but that's not the only thing in the system.
Exactly what will not happen, and a major reason why UBI will be a colossal failure if implemented. In our current political climate there is no way in hell UBI is implemented fairly and with rational checks and balances. The effort to implement UBI will be riddled with "pork" and what end up with in reality will be a sad, sad joke.
> The UBI must be indexed on the cost of life and updated every year.
That makes no sense at all. UBI is just an income redistribution scheme, thus it can only work if it's linked to productivity. Otherwise you create a system that's bound to fail and collapse in the times it's needed the most: an economic crisis.
Invest in building luxury housing in areas with high quality of living in order to lure people who can now afford better apartments and are no longer tied to a particular area?
Raise it to 2000. But the parent was talking about how now with UBI, people don't need to work to pay that.
With food stamps, and other welfare programs that already exist to cover your other costs you don't have to work to be able to afford living anymore. Sure you can't go anywhere or have a fancy new phone or car but your income from work could pay for those things instead of just barely being able to stay alive.
Yeah, that is a fair point. Nonetheless, at this point we are not providing them a general income and instead society will just be subsidizing rent.
I don’t like this solution because it is a pretend-solution. What are the causes of poverty? Prevent them. What are the barriers to mobility in the job market? Alleviate them.
UBI helps but in my opinion it is just sweeping the problem under the rug.
Value capture by capitalists. Perverse incentives of means-tested welfare programs. Making choices that are suboptimal from an expected value perspective because they are better from a risk perspective when you can't afford to take risks.
> Prevent them.
UBI prevents or reduces all of those causes.
> What are the barriers to mobility in the job market?
People not having the resources to take time off their current job to retrain, either via formal training program or taking temporary lower-paid work in a different field, among others.
Why wouldn't the landlord raise rent to $3000 if it's clear that most of their tenants could manage to find a job on the side to cover the difference? That's what they already have to do now, right?
Because like any other price gouging circumstances, attorneys general can get involved, city councils, county, state... if landlords in particular want to start charging more than the market can bear that can be stopped.
I don't get why this one fear "omg rents will skyrocket!" gets trotted out as The Reason UBI will fail.
Because that would require all landlords in every place anyone would want to live to coordinate with each other, and to also coordinate with builders to not build more housing in places people want to live to not build new housing. $1,000 per month, at a 3% interest rate, would support around a $400,000 mortgage. That's getting into the territory where you can custom-build a house, and is several times the cost of a pre-fab house. Two people on $1,000 / month each could cover cost of living somewhere cheap, and if rents get high enough in places where jobs exist, some people will just entirely opt out of working and go buy a house where stuff is cheap, which reduces demand in impacted areas.
Prices will go up by some percentage of the basic income amount, but that percentage will be less than 100% of the difference. The landlord might raise rent from $1000 to $1600, but not to $3,000.
I understand that, in reality, the rent increase will probably not be 100% of the maximum possible theoretical increase that the current tenants could handle. In reality, it will be some fraction of that.
But what I am saying is that theoretical value for the new rent amount in that pricing model is $3000, not $2000 like the other poster was saying. Thus their arguments don't work.
If it’s so obvious, why do all supporters of UBI ignore the issue? If you really care about the well being of the worlds population then address the underlying problems.
Provide them access to the education you received (starting with primary school, not college).
Prevent their exploitation by the companies. Especially those that we often work for!
I would bet a better effect can be realized by investing in public education at the primary-high school levels. Make teacher salaries competitive with engineers. Enable all schools to have the equipment and teacher qualities they need.
Getting a good education is a lot easier when you have notebooks, filling breakfast, and parents whose stress or sleep-deprivation doesn't exacerbate untreated mental health issues.
We're not ignoring the issue, we just don't think the issue is the same one you do.
The main issue in the world at the moment is income inequality, the things that you are listing stem from that, you can't fix education inequality without first addressing the income issue - UBI proposes that we tackle the source of the problem rather than trying to patch things up downstream
You cannot fix wealth inequality by giving the paltry amount of monthly stipend UBI is discussing. To address wealth inequality you need to educate the public better and you need to regulate capitalism better. Simply giving people UBI is a gift to the educated capitalist who will simply raise prices while simultaneously paying lobbyists to insure raising their prices is legal.
What paltry amount are we discussing? The concept of UBI is that it pays a living wage, enough to feed, clothe and house someone. It might not eradicate wealth inequality but it definitely narrows the gap/reduces it.
I'm assuming you accept that the poor are getting poorer and the wealthy are getting wealthier - how do you propose to stop that without UBI?
UBI alone is not a solution, it needs to be accompanied with access to adequately funded education and affordable housing and healthcare. Education is the #1 driver of success, and at minimum a better commitment to education by the United States will pay back multiple times over. Additionally, what leads you to believe UBI will allow an individual enough to feed, clothe and house themselves? Sure, that's the "idea" but in this world you think that would become a reality? No way. UBI as implemented will be watered down and it's effect will be a net zero, triggering the conservatives to cry "see! it does not work!"
What do you think every landlord will do next year?