- A guaranteed-basic-income program in Austin gave people $1,000 a month for a year.
- Most of the participants spent the no-strings-attached cash on housing, a study found.
- Participants who said they could afford a balanced meal also increased by 17%.
A guaranteed-basic-income plan in one of Texas’ largest cities reduced rates of housing insecurity. But some Texas lawmakers are not happy.
Austin was the first city in Texas to launch a tax-payer-funded guaranteed-income program when the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot kicked off in May 2022. The program served 135 low-income families, each receiving $1,000 monthly. Funding for 85 families came from the City of Austin, while philanthropic donations funded the other 50.
The program was billed as a means to boost people out of poverty and help them afford housing. “We know that if we trust people to make the right decisions for themselves and their families, it leads to better outcomes,” the city says on its website. “It leads to better jobs, increased savings, food security, housing security.”
While the program ended in August 2023, a new study from the Urban Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank, found that the city’s program did, in fact, help its participants pay for housing and food. On average, program participants reported spending more than half of the cash they received on housing, the report said.
Wouldn’t this lead you to postulate that the housing crisis in America is real and out of control when the money you give them goes right into housing?
Is this how they intend to fleece America? Give people a guaranteed income paid for by their tax dollars, so it can go right into government subsidized housing, owned and run by a shadow company that the politicians and their buddies just happen to be on the board of?
Honestly if it means guaranteed housing(which it doesn’t) then I’d be down with that. It’s better than getting fleeced with no house.
Have you ever been inside of current government funded housing?
No, but I have to imagine it’s superior to a cardboard box or a bridge
It’s fine, but it depends on upkeep. Just like any other housing. It was a good idea, but needs funding (like roads, bridges, etc.).
Plenty of people live in unmaintained apartments owned by slumlords, but nobody’s saying “look at how bad private housing is!” Few people (dummies) say “look how bad public roads are!” and advocate private toll roads and bridges.
We have all the money we need to fund such projects, provided we stop running eight wars at once abroad and then paying for other countries’ wars too.
You are thinking too small and distracting from the main point here. From a strictly economic standpoint, we have enough money to do all these things.
Uh yeah actually. It’s not a luxury apartment but it’s not bad either.
You must not live in Chicago.
@BobGnarley @Maggoty
Have you ever been without housing? I’m assuming not or you wouldn’t have made that argument.Being bad in one place doesn’t mean it’s bad everywhere. I’m sorry you had a bad experience but elsewhere the government functions as a renter of last resort with properties all over the place. What’s bad is the high rise projects that were made to corral poor minorities and cut them off from the rest of society.
Congratulations, you managed to make people having a place to live sound not just bad, but sinister.
“Kapitalet höjer hyrorna, och Staten bostadsbidragen.”
The Swedes were calling out this game back in 1972.
Of course, our solution was to just stop subsidizing housing altogether and screw over poor people.
Whoa there, we already know the future of subsidized housing is corporate towns. Why give it to the people when you can just give it to their rich boss instead?
I feel guaranteed income amount should be based on government contracted rates for places providing something akin to a single occupancy dorm room. so food and shelter in a basic way is covered.
Who’s tax dollars, it has to be a wealth transfer or the scheme won’t work.
Texas doesn’t have an income tax but it has incredibly high property taxes. In a very real way, this program is literally funded by taxing the super wealthy, including foreign investors. If you are a foreign national that owns a condo in one of the downtown highrises, you still pay property taxes.
Source: Former Austinite.
And if everyone got this, rents would mysteriously increase by $1000 …
Fuck these landlords.
For profit housing and for profit healthcare are abominations.
Totally agreed.
Don’t forget for-profit prisons.
Rents are being driven up by illegal collaboration anyways. This just like the inflation argument against minimum wage increases. Prices going up is not an argument against giving people more money. Prices will go up anyways.
Or you could just have prices not go up, and also give people value through strong nationalized programs i.e. public healthcare, public transport, nationalized housing…
Price controls have uhh not gone well historically. Usually they lead to an explosion in the black market and a supply shortage in the normal market. Things stop falling off of trucks because the entire truck is gone. So until we figure out a better way of transferring goods, we’re stuck with money and prices that can be manipulated.
But I agree with the rest of that. Strong government social supports are a great way to rein in the private markets. Having trouble with housing availability? What if Housing and Urban Development (HUD) buys land, builds something, and rents the units at cost? Why is that not an option? Why isn’t there an Online USA University run by Department of Education? Is an opt in government health plan really that scary?
Can we not have one nice thing?
I was not talking about price controls. I don’t know of the USA but government buybacks of housing stock have helped relieve some of the pressure in Europe as well as purpose built high quality housing like in Vienna.
Ah yes that would be a good thing to do. In the US though people think the government can’t be allowed to compete with private business. So we’ll never have anything like that
Unfortunately :/
This trope is dumb and you should feel bad for repeating it. It shows a truly shocking lack of insight into even the most basic middle-school-level economic principles.
In germany we had a 10k€ bonus for all buyers of an electric car. After the bonus ended, all the cars suddenly cost 7k-10k less in about 2 months.
I would argue that this is an example of how the reduction of consumer demand caused companies to lower their prices, unless there was an increase of 7k-10k when the program started as well.
So a subsidy on a specific product category affected prices on that category? That doesn’t prove anything about UBI. UBI isn’t a subsidy on rent—or a subsidy at all—so your example is irrelevant.
EXACTLY! Which is why my Rent has NOT gone in up YEARS!
We all know that if this was a permanent part of the program, every revolving bill (mortgage, utilties, etc.) would all of a sudden rise to get a piece of that extra income. But because this was a temporary program, it probably only increased by the normal rate. So people mostly got a chance to use it without businesses getting greedier.
To all the people saying “hur dur it’s just giving money to landlords”:
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No it’s not. People who would not have had housing were able to have it. If you think that’s a bad thing because some landlords got paid in the process, you seriously need to have your moral compass checked.
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To those explicitly linking this to the idea (which is often cited but never backed up with evidence) that landlords (and mysteriously no other segment of the economy) will medically capture 110% of the value of any possible UBI program: This is not the evidence you’ve been lacking. The money wasn’t given to everyone as it would be in a universal basic income program. It was given to people who were struggling. Of fucking course people who were homeless or near homeless spent the money on rent. The fact that people who become able to afford housing mostly choose to spend their money on housing just tells you how much people value having a place to live. It says nothing about how money would flow in a full scale system.
If it proofs anything its that when the poor are given free money people prioritize having a stable, healthy lifestyle.
Should be pretty standard if they want a society worth of peoples contributions.
Has your rent gone up, ever? Thats what’s gonna happen with a UBI. Your landleech thinks you can pay more, so he can charge more.
Meanwhile government (nationalized) housing programs actually work and are cost efficient.
Rent went up 7 percent this year across my state, and it’s already out of control to the point people are paying 4500 a month for a tiny one bedroom in the main city.
Don’t think everyone getting a thousand extra bucks is going to change that drastically. And anyway, if landlords do do that, put in a rent cap in addition.
Then your bills will rise instead. Whoever can cash in - will do so. It is extremely naive to think it won’t become a wealth transfer from the state (taxpayers) to the rich and corpos, like corporate welfare.
Rent price caps are something, but stopgaps aren’t what we should aim for.
You seem to willingly not wrap your head around the fact I’m not berating UBI because I prioritize the economy over the people like a conservative, fearmongering about inflation etc., but because UBI is prioritizing the economy over the people itself by rejecting the far more effective solution of nationalizing necessities (e.g. housing, utilities) and cutting out the profiteering middle men entirely instead of paying them on the grounds that it’s scary socialism.
Market solutions don’t work on problems that are inherent to capitalism. I wish you could see that.
Has your rent gone up, ever? Thats what’s gonna happen with a UBI.
You haven’t said anything to establish a connection between your question and your statement. You’re using the structure of a rational argument but your only evidence is “trust me bro”. Fuck that and fuck you for trying to use sophistry.
My evidence is supply and demand, if it works, then that is what will happen with UBI. Market based solutions do not work for problems inherent to capitalism itself.
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The sad thing is that high cost of housing is entirely unnecessary exploitation anyway. Just pass a law that transfers all house and land ownership into collective hands and erases all dept based on houses. I bet the vast majority of people would vote for it lol.
Who’s collective hands?
I Holland we have woning bouw organisaties That are BY law obliged to offer services and structured management, checked by impartial state department and who can be relieved of function (transfering the properties to another organization or splitting them up etcetera). Yes, needs to be overview, laws and such. Maybe even subsidies for new buildings.
But NO PROFIT ANYWHERE.
Not for public basic housing. Come on, do we really wanna admit RUZZIA and CHINA beat us on this?
Yeah, but there’s a difference between a local housing authority, and what that guy is suggesting, which appears to be “the state now owns all property, including stuff I’ve already paid for”.
The only people that would vote for that are people that don’t vote.
I’m all for the government taking the role of building new houses everywhere, in vast numbers in order to stabilise and eventually reduce prices. We used to have this in the UK, they were called council houses and the local government rented them out at reasonable prices. Then Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher got in power and sold them all off, under the guise of letting people buy the property they were renting. This isn’t a bad idea in itself, but there was another edge to that sword. No more properties would be allowed to be build with the proceeds. In effect it became a state sell-off. It’s been fucked ever since.
No, it would BE BOUGHT by government at fair price (they know the fair price, just look your houses tax bill)
Or built by them.
And then rented out with a certain maximum rental price per Sq Mt like 10$ so 50sq m (500sq ft) = 500$/month
Most importantly, they would be obliged to make it Energy efficient by their contract with the state so much lower electric and heating bill, maybe even topped off with solar, would be small percentage of a new building but cut costs for actual people.
Not saying it’s perfect in Holland (they have shortages because no new land available to build new social housing projects), but it sure works!
I kept it deliberately vague, but the main idea is democracy and public accountability, and that we need to take certain things out of corporate hands. Because it only optimizes for profit and not for social benefit or the nation’s benefit. Basically all the fundamental needs of the people need to become a kind of guaranteed basic right - food water shelter education and communication. And there could be multiple different models.
There are widespread and established neoliberal myths now that only “private” institutions can work efficiently and unbiased. Definitely based on Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl, and then perpetrated by the “third way” leftists that declared democracy as an inefficient tool to order society.
But you can establish institutions with more useful motivations and that are more intelligent to withstand things like shortages. With things like healthcare you actually do want less efficiency, e.g. in a pandemic.
Right now it seems unthinkable, but with the climate and other crisis looming it might become feasible. At least if we have the actual ideology “at the ready”.
Yeah, surely nothing could go wrong with that plan.
Ever been to public housing? There’s a reason it’s usually shitty, and that’s because the people who live there don’t own it, so they have no reason to care for it because they could be moved somewhere else at any time.
The same is true of a lot of average apartment buildings, especially college housing, but they are rigourously maintained by staff.
Public housing in the US is rarely funded enough or maintained properly. It’s almost a cliche in the US, municipalities purposely underfund public programs so they fail, to encourage privatization.
This might sound surprising, but that’s because people are paying for it, and there are consequences for trashing the place (forfeiting deposit etc.)
I’m talking about state owned public housing, which is almost always a catastrophe. And that’s not just because of lack of funding, but because the people who live there have no sense of ownership, and suffer little to no consequences if they don’t keep it in shape.
State owned public housing has worked all around the world. Council houses in the UK for example looked good and helped lots of people get houses, and didn’t really get associated with poor people until Thatcher and her shitty policies. In Finland, like a third of their housing is public housing and they’ve managed to essentially eliminate homelessness this way.
I mean… it’s probably better than homeless, especially in cold climates, I’ll give you that. But it’s not great, neither here nor in Europe.
Having a sense of ownership is an important factor in motivating people to take care of their place of residence. Plenty of renters trash their apartments too.
And plenty of home owning people trash their homes, too. I think it’s just how some people are with their shelter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Check out the show Hoarders, for example.
Meanwhile, plenty of renters take care of their place because it’s where they live. I take care of my rented apartment more than my fucking landlord does, and he supposedly owns it. It’s supposed to be his only job to call people to fix things when I bring it up or point out an issue while it’s still small, yet it still is a coin toss whether someone will show up or not. I don’t think the categories are so easily placed.
Yes, and I’m sure not all people who live in public housing trash their apartments, but it seems to be more common there than with renters, and more common with renters than with homeowners. And it seems to me that perhaps it’s a matter of appreciation — the less you have to work for something, the less you tend to appreciate having it.
For instance, a lot of people only start appreciating being in good health once they’ve gone and ruined it, they don’t start exercising until they’re already overweight, they don’t appreciate having a job until they’re unemployed, etc.
Please note that this is NOT an argument against housing homeless people — it’s only an argument against the idea that some sort of collective action would somehow be able to do the most justice to the most people. That is rarely, if ever, the case. If history shows anything, it’s that the larger the collective action, the more injustice it tends to cause, regardless of intention.
Like others said, specific examples of failures are “anecdotal” and you’d need to look at this scientifically and account for variables. Propaganda and neoliberal ideology makes this very difficult for the US.
Well, in that case, assuming that collectivizing housing will solve the issue is just as erroneous as assuming it won’t, isn’t it.
Not exactly. Saying something cannot work can be disproven by showing a single example of it working. There are plenty.
What I am trying to say is that housing should not be run for the sole pursuit of profit. People should own their own house, should own and manage an apartment block collectively, or have institutions that “own” and manage housing not for profit but for social and global benefit. But Individuals or corporations shouldn’t be allowed to own other peoples houses for profit. Or land for that matter. At least not as “capital”.
So you can “own” your own house and keep it for your children but you’re more like a steward, you can’t rent it out or own the housing of lots of people. It would cease to become a commodity and be much cheaper then.
That’s very radical and faces many potential problems but you can’t say it’s erroneous proposition. What you’d need are scientific studies that compare different models in different countries and account for all the variables including political corruption to sabotage public housing. And what benefits can be shown.
I don’t propose state socialism because that kind of total concentration of all economic power was shown to be very corrupt. But we need better models because right now wealth inequality is so vast than most housing is being bought off and concentrated for the 0.1% - which is very similar to state socialism too!
Saying something cannot work can be disproven by showing a single example of it working.
But something working in a single instance does not automatically prove it will work in all instances (see: Prisoner’s Dilemma, Efficient Market Paradox)
Yes, collectivized housing CAN work. Private housing cooperatives, for instance (which is what you seem to be describing) DO exist and are a decent alternative for sustainable homeownership. They probably won’t solve the homeless crisis, however.
My point was/is not to argue and collectivized approaches to housing in principle, but only against the idea that there exists some sort of “one size fits all” approach that will do everyone justice. That is simply not the case, regardless of how much some people want it to be true.
Well any discussion about this is good because right now the acceptable ideology and mainstream discussion about this is overwhelmingly one sided. There is no resistance to insane wealth concentration.
I have the feeling that UBI is doomed to fail if the basic necessities of live will continue to be owned and run for profit. Give people $1000 bucks more and the prices will increase because “they” own and control everything.
So maybe there should be two economies: One socialist for the necessities to live a prosperous life (not luxurious or consumerist) and one for all the rest. The first one should be sustainable and some kind of circular economy where everything is build to last and be repaired and recycled, the other is free market made for competition to innovate and create new products and services.
Oh yeah, nothing wrong with a good discussion. Gotta look at the problem from all angles before deciding what is to be done about it, otherwise you often end up making things worse.
As far as that second economy goes… you kinda just have to build that yourself by making IRL friendships with people you can trust to reciprocate.
They spent the no-strings-attached cash mostly on housing, a study found
They had to hand it straight back to greedy landlords in order not to be evicted
Sorted that headline for you, nae bother hen
City with an absurd income-to-rental-price spread: “We’re giving you some money.”
People getting the money: “This will go towards the enormous debts accrued to my landlords who keep cranking up the cost of housing.”
Economists: surprised-pikachu-face. “We thought for sure they would spend it on video games and fentanyl.”
“Housing addiction: the next drug war.” - Republicans/Capitalists
Do not become addicted to Housing. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
You mean Conservative TV Commenters Masquerading as Economists. Economists in academia and community driven projects have known this for a while. It’s why stuff like this is even getting trials.
You mean Conservative TV Commenters Masquerading as Economists.
If you’re not a talking head on a Daytime Network TV Show, how am I supposed to trust you?
You know you can trust me because I sell high quality health supplements. So you know I care about you.
Shows a bottle marked “Maggoty’s Gainz”, it’s clearly just a relabeled bottle of Scotch.
‘oh, they have more money now… time for it to be my money’
that happened with me with the covid checks. soon as those came out, rent went up–and up. those quickly disappeared but the rent increases are forever.
YSK that landlords in the US actually collaborated with a software company to drive up rents during that period. The software company told each company exactly how many units to keep off the market to cause large increases in rent prices across the board.
In Utah landlords all have carte blanche to do as they wish, they are all legislatures so they have passed laws giving themselves exclusive authority.
There are no tenant rights or protection laws in Utah. Where I used to live, the landlords would come in and take furniture or valuables that they wanted, whenever they wanted. Tenants have no say in what happens. You can be evicted without cause or notice here for any reason.
Now they’ve strengthened the landlords’ grips with more laws preventing tenants from having the right to sue or contact landlords at all. It’s just a great place to live all around.
The study didn’t give us the answer we wanted so we burned the results and cut social programs some more.
Didn’t this basically happen like 10-15 years ago in Canada? I remember hearing about a similar study being shut down and the records sealed when the new conservative administration at the time came into power.
It’s always “this small test just wouldn’t work on a larger scale, so let’s never try at all.”
You might be thinking of this one
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Basic_Income_Pilot_Project
It’s a GOOD thing this ended! If they enacted this NATIONWIDE my Rent might Increase! Because it OBVIOUSLY hasn’t increased at ALL since I moved in thanks to not having a UBI!
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Denver seems to be leading America with a lot of these good things. Upfront labor wage policies, marijuana, this. Looking at those mountains is also a plus.
Lots of progress towards helping folks. That Progressive politics in action - we will take your hungry, your tired, your sick.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter to the state’s attorney general asking him to declare a new program in Houston as unconstitutional.
Of course they call it unconstitutional. It actually helps people and the constitution says nothing about helping people. /s
When people can afford houses, they stop being homeless… Amazing
When will humans learn to attack the problem and not the victim of the problem?
Let’s find out if they can continue it without other states funding their existence.
*gestures to Rafael theodore Cruz at the airport
Texas didn’t fund shit, Austin did. The government of Texas is actively hostile to the city of Austin.
We need first universal Healthcare, education and affordable housing, otherwise the money would go to the leeches(landlords,insurance, student debt).
There are two types of UBI supporters- Those that want UBI on top of the targeted welfare program, and those that want UBI to replace targeted welfare programs. If UBI was ever implemented, which kind of UBI supporter do you think the republicans and moderate dems would be?
The ones that would use it as an excuse to get rid of targeted welfare before not having enough votes to continue UBI.
Depends on the lobbyists and whoever is paying the media organizations. If companies realize they have more people to sell to they might lobby to have the former, and the majority of all beliefs are coming from medias spin on things. In theory, you could get Republicans who support UBI by simply getting a few lobbyists, and an anti UBI democratic candidate and poof, Republicans would swear by it. If you have the Republicans and the non moderate Dems, it could pass. Then once in place I imagine both companies and citizens would realize they don’t want to vote it away.
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Thatchers plan would have worked if and only when:
LAND IS PROVIDED FOR NEW PROJECTS (destination plan on national provincial and local level)
ALL INCOME FROM RENT TO BUY (or similar) IS SPEND ON NEW PROJECTS
ALL PROJECTS ARE GUARANTEED BY THE BUILDER (no excess costs for any reason : sign your profitable contract but then you are obliged to deliver exactly what is promised or you’ll never get another gov project again)
Is the problem with housing really supply, or is it that it’s an unregulated monopoly where land owners are allowed to leverage their monopoly for uncapped profit?
Depends. In Holland it’s very clear, not enough houses are being built for the amount of new/young people needing one.
This is because the destination plans FORCE an area to remajn same usage, business ind, agri, forest/nature, commercial. There is almost no mixing there.
The new projects that do continue are almost always mostly for richer people.
And the poor areas arnt desirable…
None of it is fault of land owners.
At all Ever.
They don’t even exist in Europe really.
It’s all gov land and destined for something already.
Maybe in usa y o u can blame land owners…
This is one of mine. I started lobbying for it in 2015 when even all in our group looked at me like I’m crazy. Not so crazy now, am I?
Before anyone asks, Austin is very much so a small town in some ways. Many tech folk moved in for the dot-com boom and never left because we fell in love with the town. We also stayed friends and we communicate often, even as we all moved on to do bigger and better things. Sometimes, all it takes is an e-mail thread to make change.
If there is a pot hole on the street, and the city isn’t fixing it, organize a few people. You might find that someone in your community has the tools you need, and someone else has left over materials.
