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by mseebach
3046 days ago
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There's a special case on housing expenses. There aren't enough housing units in many areas for everybody who wants to live in those areas. So, the price goes up, and this acts a as a crude filter for how bad you want to live in an area. There is no rate of UBI that will cover housing expenses in such an area -- the rent will always be what everybody can afford + n, where n is large enough that only enough people who can fit can afford it. This dynamic is basically inflation. Increasing supply or redirecting demand is the only way to lower n. n can also manifest itself as a waiting list. (This is not, by the way, a normative statement, it's merely descriptive) This inflationary pressure probably won't apply to food, because the supply of food is a lot more elastic than the supply of housing. That more people can afford better probably means that more good food gets sold, and perhaps some scarcer foods might come under pressure, but the supply, and thus price, of things like rice and carrots is unlikely to go up. |
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No, but UBI would enable people to move out of that area to areas with cheaper housing and fewer jobs.
I can imagine quite a number of economic migrants from the North of England who currently live in London would decide to return home and live closer to family in cheaper locales if their overall economic situation was a bit more secure.
That would, in turn, put relieve pressure on the housing market in London and provide some economic stimulus for more deprived areas.
>This inflationary pressure probably won't apply to food, because the supply of food is a lot more elastic than the supply of housing. That more people can afford better probably means that more good food gets sold, and perhaps some scarcer foods might come under pressure, but the supply, and thus price, of things like rice and carrots is unlikely to go up.
I think the price of organic carrots and rice would probably go up a lot. Their supply isn't particularly elastic (and is constrained by access to cheap labor... whose price would go up under UBI). If you give poor people more money one of the first things they will do is try and buy better quality food.
McDonalds would probably take a hit and would likely have to shake their image up to attract clientele in much the same way they did in Australia (where, thanks to a high minimum wage, people at the lower end of the economic spectrum have a higher disposable income): https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mcdonalds-in-australia-vs...