Hacker News Reader

Comment by immawizard | Hacker News Reader

I disagree on the housing point. With basic income, people who can’t afford housing in expensive areas would move to towns with cheap housing/land but less lucrative/efficient work. There’s no housing shortage in rural areas.

View on HN

I have lived in areas that were gentrifying. Everyone knew that rents were going up and would continue to go up, but few were willing to leave. People with small nest eggs preferred to blow it on higher rents than invest it in relocation. The general attitude I saw was 'I have a right to live here so I will, even if I can no longer afford it.'

Not only that but people have an emotional investment; "This is my home", "All my family lives here", "It's all I've ever known", etc. Moving to someplace cheaper may not be an improvement overall. Financially maybe, but what's that worth if all your friends live across the state, or you can't just hop into a nearby pub (if that's your thing) like you used to, or you have to drive for an hour to get to work instead of a 15 minute bike ride?

Why doesn’t that happen today?

Moving is expensive and disruptive.

Because moving itself is expensive, and you can't just move and automatically have a new job. With basic income, you can afford to move, and don't have to worry too much about the time you'll spend looking for a new job.

Because there isn't much work if you live there. If you had UBI though, that wouldn't matter, so you could just live in a rural area for cheap.

This of course directly contradicts the claim that people will keep working with UBI.

If they like their current house they'll work hard to pay for it. If they can't find a job or don't like their current home that much they can use their UBI to move and make room for a more productive citizen to move into the city. This makes the allocation of housing more efficient.

It does. But perhaps at a lower rate?

Years ago, the Great Recession slowed that migration a lot.

Because moving to places with lower cost of living, to speak extremely broadly of course, means less income compared to cost of living, meaning a lower standard of living. But with a guaranteed income, a lower cost of living would always mean a benefit to standard of living.

This is true in theory but not in practice in my experience. I presently live in one of the bottom 5 states in terms of population density and there are multiple manufacturing plants that require no experience, are paying 60k+ for new hires, and are in extremely low COL areas. By the way, they can't find enough people to apply and are having to aggressively advertise to fill entry-level spots. I think the issue is more information asymmetry. If people knew the jobs existed and knew what they paid I'm sure at least some % would be willing to move, but no one discloses that out of that gate, unfortunately.

I think the other problem is what happens next. Without the nexus of a city you are stuck at that place or the 4 or 5 similiar places. Good or bad variety can offer more.

People are not exclusively driven by economics, nor are they immune to economics. For a lot of people, moving to a place with lower COL would mean giving up community and family in their high COL areas. Those networks provide a lot of security that doesn't appear on the books.

These are quality of life trade-offs that are different for everyone.

Of course, the younger or more flexible you are, areas like yours might be a good opportunity, but it's not a obvious win for every entry level job aspirant.

Because jobs and services are in big cities.

Because relocating requires a tremendous effort: new housing, job, occupation, acquaintances, etc.

Because a lot of that cheap land is cheap for a reason: low/no data service, harsh weather, insufficient community.

Because "basic income" is free: the whole point of UBI is a basic income which one can get by on - non-zero effort to work at all withers against the prospect of being comfortable doing nothing; there is no imperative incentive to work.

Rural areas are expensive, but heavily subsidized, from roads to Telecom and other utilities. This is only reasonable now because we need people out there growing food. It's crazy to spend money on moving people to the prairie instead of just building more housing in cities where people want to be.

But there are infrastructure and opportunity shortage in those areas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com