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Comment by phkahler | Hacker News Reader

Another missing element in the model: People who need it most are renting. You hand everyone $1000 per month and I guarantee there will be a large uptick in rents. This will short circuit economic activity and just push the money straight to those who own rental property, thereby increasing the wealth gap while raising the cost of living. I won't all go into this effect, but certainly a lot of it will.

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The moment I get my monthly cheddar, I'm moving to a nicer place with lower cost of living.

The USA has more housing than people. Alas, that excess supply isn't near the jobs.

So you'd move to one of those places with cheap housing and no jobs? Does that mean you'd not be working?

Of course the influx of people to low cost areas with no jobs would create some jobs in those places and raise prices on everything from housing to pizza.

Given broadband and strong coffee, I'll make the jobs.

this is the perspective of someone who lives in a housing market in dire shortage. basic income might enable people, for the first time, to try living outside these places, where they are tied to their current job. in the rest of america, there is competition between landlords to attract tenants.

I know someone who live in subsidized housing. I understand this is not a common situation so it's not representative of a lot. Her rent is literally defined as a percentage of her income. She doesn't work, so income is in part child support payments and who knows what else. I believe the percentage is over 30, so if you handed her UBI over $300 would go straight to her rent.

Prices are like that - hand people (actually loan them beyond their means) money to go to college and tuition skyrockets. Give them heath insurance and those costs go up. Hand them a blank check every month and it will most likely all go to some form of inflation.

The law that enacts basic income could easily exclude BI from the calculation of income for rent subsidies. Or it could change the formula for those subsidies, maybe by capping the rent (if it isn't already).

Everyone getting it buys a lot of the same goods, including housing. You'd expect increased demand to bring prices up a bit across the board, but I don't think it's as huge as you're making it out to be.

It will rise inflation, probably - as you will have a lot more cash in the market... And finally "nothing will change".

Inflation isn't really tied directly to cash in the market and I doubt you'd see inflation soak up $1000 / month. The dollar would have to become basically worthless for that to happen.

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