> It's actually true that rising wages result in higher rents.
It's true in places with a constrained housing supply, i.e. restrictive zoning. Which is common in urban areas. But what you have there is a zoning problem, not a UBI problem -- evidence being that it's also true of higher wages and lower unemployment etc.
In unconstrained areas higher demand for housing causes more housing to be built, which prevents housing costs from absorbing anywhere near 100% of the new money.
Those less restrictive areas are not always where people want to live. The people advocating for UBI are often not the same people that are OK with poor people being priced out of an area and moving into lower-cost areas.
I think it's more likely we'll see UBI proponents want to factor in a cost of living adjustment based on the place one lives, which will be a nightmare of political administration and unintended consequences.
> Those less restrictive areas are not always where people want to live.
Then remove the restrictions in the places people do want to live.
> I think it's more likely we'll see UBI proponents want to factor in a cost of living adjustment based on the place one lives, which will be a nightmare of political administration and unintended consequences.
Agreed that there's additional margin we can get with less restrictive zoning, but land is ultimately supply constrained. More importantly, high-quality (previously defined as arable, now defined as "close to good jobs/services") is certainly constrained as a matter of physical distance.
Land is supply constrained, which causes housing to cost more in urban areas because constructing taller buildings costs more. But the limit on housing supply even in urban areas, absent restrictive zoning, would be that construction cost at any plausible level of demand.
We know how to build 100 story buildings but there is no place on earth where you can find a hundred square miles of nothing but 100 story buildings.
It's true in places with a constrained housing supply, i.e. restrictive zoning. Which is common in urban areas. But what you have there is a zoning problem, not a UBI problem -- evidence being that it's also true of higher wages and lower unemployment etc.
In unconstrained areas higher demand for housing causes more housing to be built, which prevents housing costs from absorbing anywhere near 100% of the new money.