- 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.
“In completely unrelated news, average rent prices in the Austin area have soared by $1,100 dollars over the past year.”
Austin housing prices decreased
The good part about UBI is that this doesn’t happen. There was a study from an African UBI program that showed no inflation at all in the village they provided funds to.
Maybe in a national version of UBI where you can’t easily move somewhere cheaper this would be more of a risk, but that just makes it more profitable to build more houses, and increasing the supply brings the price down again.
I don’t think the African village had Chinese megacorps snatching up available real estate for rent squatting. Although I might be wrong. I do feel that its an extremely different scenario than in the US however.
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?
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.
An apartment is a gateway home.
That’s why you spend more than a mortgage note on less space and you don’t even accrue equity.
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.
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.
‘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.
$1000 a month wouldn’t even begin to help cover the cost of basic housing in Utah, I’m not sure what the situation is in Austin. I made a good salary but still wasn’t able to afford a single bedroom apartment in Salt Lake, and now that rent has gone way up here, nobody can. In fact most former renters are now on the street.
Nobody in Utah can afford a house if they didn’t already own one. Because of the outrageous prices, all the homebuyers are out of state millionaires who buy up property to rent out to other rich couples.
Maybe we should all move to Austin, if only they’d move Austin out of Texas and into a better state.
Maybe we should all move to Austin, if only they’d move Austin out of Texas and into a better state.
You’re about a decade and a half too late on that idea. Austin is crumbling under the massive weight of newcomers (mostly tech). Housing, rent, traffic, you name it. It’s no longer the haven of good jobs and cheaper living that it was 15 - 20 years ago.
I’ve read about that and all the influx of newcomers into Austin. It’s the exact same here in Salt Lake (of all places). Young people are moving here in droves, I think mostly because there’s tons of low-paying jobs available. That is - the jobs SEEM not all that low paying until you look at the astronomical rent and housing prices here. (IN SALT LAKE, OF ALL GOD FORSAKEN PLACES!!!).
Paul Bettencourt sounds like a horrible person. I hope his life is as nice as he is.
To all the people saying “hur dur it’s just giving money to landlords”:
-
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.
-
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
-
I had no idea there were so many people who were against a UBI on Lemmy. I’m honestly surprised.
I’ve been surprised and super disappointed by a lot of the views I’ve been seeing in Lemmy comments lately. Anti homeless, judging addiction, fairly socially conservative, buying into the whole retail theft narrative, and the worst has been the misogyny framed as “realism” or some shit.
I don’t know, it’s not for me.
Just pay attention to the instances the comments come from. This account is federated with .world and I am always seeing the most awful takes on here and it seems like most of the time it comes from users there.
I have another account not federated with .world, but it is with pretty much everything else. There’s fewer comments (rarely over 100) but it’s usually actual discussion and not revolving around anti-humanitarian practices.
It’s not a guarantee, but it seems very very high.
I’ve always found people have the most shit opinions if it’s a post popular on Lemmy.world
I’m new to lemmy overall are there some places with better political discourse on here?
I’ve been lazy on Lemmy and just stopped searching for new lemmyverses after I hopped off reddit. But I really doubt you’re gonna find good political discourse on the Internet. I’m really disappointed everywhere I turn and I’d rather participate in real life action than argue during the few free hours I have.
What is the retail theft narrative ?
The “narrative” is that theft hurts stores and stealing from stores in low-income areas causes them to close which leads to food deserts
It makes sense…I think the FOSS/anti-big tech world brings together a weird mix of far-left socialists and also libertarian types (hence the anti UBI sentiment)
Plus lemmy has just as many shills and bots as reddit, that or it is the ultimate echo chamber, since you can ser pretty much copy paste answers on any controversial topics. The last one seems to be “LLMs are not real AI” (which, they are. Just not AGI)
IDK, I’m a leftist, and am skeptical about UBI because it’s more of a free-market approach to solving a problems, rather than just directly solving problems. I.e. the government could just build more and better homeless housing, and expand section 8 to cover more of the cost and more people. I’m a bit afraid UBI would be used as an excuse to cut social programs, in a similar way that school vouchers are used to cut spending on education and leave families paying for what the vouchers don’t cover.
Bingo. A UBI is attractive because the people that keep the economy rolling are nearly completely unable to access what the economy produces. Why are we trying to keep this broken mess limping along with a UBI? The economy is designed to produce poverty and a UBI will do very little to change that fact.
You’re surprised that people who are far enough to the right to support genocide would oppose UBI?
This isn’t UBI though. It’s welfare. It just proves that people will use welfare support responsibly. A real test of UBI would be to give everyone in a community, not just a small pool of low income families the same amount (among other things). That ain’t going to happen.
It’s been done at a town level before, with the same results
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map
Fine, then people here are anti-welfare. Either way, it’s a surprisingly conservative attitude.
I agree but some of the arguments here have a hint of truth in them such as the whole landlord thing. I think a lot of folk are wary of anything that sounds UBI related because it boils everything down to ‘one simple fix’. Programs like this work, but they’re only one piece in the puzzle such as taking housing off the market, higher taxes on the wealthy etc. I know you know this stuff. The UBI crowd takes theses studies and uses them to say ‘UBI works’ or ‘UBI can work’ even though it’s not UBI.
The UBI crowd takes theses studies and uses them to say ‘UBI works’ or ‘UBI can work’ even though it’s not UBI.
That’s a bit disengenuous. Of course people acknowledge that economic policy is difficult to experiment with.
People serious about UBI talk about phasing it in over a long period of time, in lieu of “experiments”. For example in Australia we already have refundable tax rebates (I’m sure everyone has these I just don’t know what they’re called), all you’d have to do would be to introduce a $1,000 refundable tax rebate and increase that by $1,000 each year until you get to a reasonable UBI. If, along the way the data showed deleterious effects then you could correct or discontinue.
There’s a lot of effort to deny any previous UBI experiment as having even been done. Heck the top reply to your comment here denies this is even a UBI experiment. The line is usually the only way to do the experiment is to do it and that’s the Socialisms so we can’t ever know, sorry poors.
Well, since the “U” in UBI stands for “universal”, and since the group of people who received this money were selected because they were very poor, then this is not a UBI experiment. This is just a welfare program.
Still could be considered an experiment just with a control factor being “the poors”
I’d prefer decommodification of housing but UBI is probably a step in the right direction.
I feel somewhat against it simply because I don’t think it’s necessary once you make a certain point of money. Do people making six figures really need an extra 10% or less on top of that?
Means testing has been shown to cost significantly more. That’s why I’m a fan of universal programs and not welfare programs (like the one in this study).
I would argue someone making six figures getting 10% more will have a big impact still. Give everyone the benefit, even billionaires. Using your argument, the billionaire won’t care about getting an extra $1,000 - that’s nothing to them. But no one feels “cheated” because you arbitrarily put the limit, and you know no one else is cheating the system because there is no system to cheat!
Paying for universal programs would require changing our tax structure, which I’m also supportive of.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t considered about testing costs and people feeling cheated and people actually cheating.
I didn’t feel strongly against it and I’m willing to change my mind, and you brought up some good points.
It does sound like a good idea tbh.
For an anecdotal example, when I was in my 20s I worked with an old lady at a fish market who had to strictly regulate the number of hours she worked in a year because she couldn’t afford to make above a certain amount of money. If she went into the next higher tax bracket, she would’ve been kicked off her social security, and regardless of how many hours she worked, wouldn’t be able to make up for the lost money.
Another interesting benefit I’ve heard of from a similar study that gave everybody above a certain age in a town $1,000 a month, but was focused on the impact to the labor pool, was that almost everybody continued to work except for in two categories: pregnant women and high-school students. This coincided with an increase in the average grades of high-school students, the number of kids who graduated, and the number of kids who continued on to college. The theory was that the kids who would normally have to work to help put food on the table were instead able to focus on their studies.
No, they don’t, but I think the idea is that the process of factually verifying someone’s actual income isn’t worth the waste of just giving it to them anyway.
It not that people are against everyone having the basics, it is that it mathematically makes no sense. As soon as you give everyone this money, not just a small trial you’ll see that it is immediately eaten in inflation, rent etc.
Much better is to make the first $1000 dollars not necessary. Free staple foods, free healthcare, free low tier usage on utilities, free local public transport.
But there’s no difference between giving someone $1000 for food and providing that food for free.
Either way the food is paid for by someone, whether the government hands over the check and then passes out the food, adding a layer of inefficiency, or the government hands out the check and the people buy the food, offering freedom of choice.
Giving people $1000 means they can spend it specifically on the things they need. They might need to pay off a healthcare debt with that $1000 far more than they need low tier usage on their utilities.
I think a better idea that universal basic income is universal basic services. Give everyone equal access to healthcare, food, housing, etc. Not jobs, though. Giving everyone a job leads to creating jobs that don’t need to exist just to make sure everyone has work. The USSR had guaranteed employment and that got to where you’d have to go through three different clerks at the supermarket to buy a pound of meat.
That would require an entire reworking of our economic system, whereas giving everyone $1000 a month would not.
I’ve been a proponent for UBI for a long time however after reading your comments I agree with you.
In reality, I’ve advocated for UBI because I feel the govt should provide these basic services. However in reality UBI does just seem like a means to an end.
We really should just redefine what “utilities” are (including internet, phone, public transit tickets, etc) and then provide basic access to utilities for free.
So the money went straight to the pocket of landlords. Cool.
You can’t give ordinary people money and not increase taxes on the rich. Otherwise it just becomes a wealth transfer from the state to rich people.
I’d rather transfer it to them indirectly like this than directly like we’ve been doing…
I prefer to do things right. I’m not against giving people money directly. But after historic tax cuts, it does seem like the government is just rubbing in our faces that our future is to become serfs in a techno-feudal nightmare.
There isn’t really a “correct” way to distribute wealth though. Just different trade offs. At least in a UBI system the poor get to touch it first. It allows for nice things like heating in the winter.
Ugh, we’re not heading for serfdom, that would suppose they still need workers tied to the land or factory in the future. Once a few more breakthroughs happen (It’ll be 10 years away until suddenly it happens 50 years from now) Automation will make even their normal support staff extraneous. At that point they might keep some security around, and maybe some slaves as a statement. Everyone else just gets cut off. Oh it will sound reasonable and it’ll take a couple decades once it really gets going but that’s where Automation is heading if we let the wealthy elite “own” it. They’ll make excuses about lazy poor people and how they can’t keep people on as charity and they can’t keep making food that people can’t afford to buy… There’s absolutely nothing in history that makes me think they wouldn’t just remove the majority of humans from the planet if they could get away with it. They’ve proven time and again they don’t value people as humans. Just as little labor widgets they can fiddle with.
I’d disagree that there isn’t a “correct” way to do it. Basically if the money stays with working class people, it’s good. If it just is absorbed by the richest people, it’s bad.
I didn’t say we were moving towards serfdom per se, probably only for a small amount of time. But we are surely moving towards techno-feudalism. Where rent-seeking is the primary form of wealth extraction, moving from profits being the primary one.
So the money went straight to the pocket of landlords. Cool
Ya screw them for not wanting to be out on the street! /s
Nice one bro
What… how do you think I’m blaming the individuals who got the cash? I would do the same if I were them, I don’t have a choice other than spending all my money on necessities. But isn’t that fucked? There will be less and less jobs, and the state will just keep giving measly amounts of money to us until we all become serfs. Working a month a year for the privilege of earning enough from the state for subsistence. While the rich become richer and richer until we are separate species and AI and robots advance far enough they REALLY don’t need us. Then what?
That’s definitely the unfortunate part. The good thing here is that this not only stimulates the economy, it does so by improving the lives of people who really need it. When we hand the PPP loans, that money went straight into the pockets of people who didn’t need it. It was mostly grift. This is the opposite.
Yes, while I’m all in favor of measures to reduce the disparity in wealth, I think this is a net positive in the short term.
Well, at least some people who needed it got housing along the way.
Agreed!
Yep let’s give it straight to the rich, just like the Dead Kennedys said.
Efficiency and progress is ours once more Now that we have the neutron bomb It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy But no less value to property No sense in war but perfect sense at home
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
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?
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.
The ones that would use it as an excuse to get rid of targeted welfare before not having enough votes to continue UBI.
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.
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?
“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.
Congratulations, you managed to make people having a place to live sound not just bad, but sinister.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Was this rental housing or save-for-a-down-payment housing?
Yes, as a homeowner, I am plenty aware $12k will not cover a down payment in a lot of places. Maybe this gave some of these families the boost they need, or tipped them over the threshold they needed.
