this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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  • 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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

Popular opinion is that if you give people free money they will use it on what enriches their lives.

Economists would probably just point out the fact that whenever you subsidize something the thing you're trying to make easier is suddenly even more expensive to the point where there's hardly a discount if one even exists.

Look at the cash for clunkers program. At the end of that car dealerships were raking in huge profits.

In this case if you give someone a thousand bucks a month, odds are landlords will pocket the majority of that, because housing is the biggest cost for everybody who is not already an owner. If everyone has 1000/mo more, they can suddenly afford 1000/more on housing. This may make minimal impact in areas with extremely high COL, but all the associated suburbs, rough parts of town, college areas... yeah those rents are gonna go way up.

example: 4BR apartment? Oh... I guess that's another +$3500/mo... after all all four of you are getting that money for free. New price: $7000/mo. It's only 1750/mo, or 750 per person per month because the government (our tax dollars) is paying that poor, poor landlord. How ever would they survive elsewise?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Economists would probably just point out the fact that whenever you subsidize something the thing you're trying to make easier is suddenly even more expensive to the point where there's hardly a discount if one even exists.

That's a very convenient "fact" to point out if you want to eliminate all assistance for people who are struggling.

Now explain how corn subsidies had no effect on corn prices and definitely didn't result in everything being full of corn syrup.

Next explain how basic income is a subsidy.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Economists would not say that. There's a lot of cases of subsidized products not inflating. Generally for that kind of inflation to happen you would need a monopoly or similarly non competitive market to allow such rent seeking. (In the economic sense, not the housing sense)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (10 children)

Texas figured this out? Texas? This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Paul Bettencourt sounds like a horrible person. I hope his life is as nice as he is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

$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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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