this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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This is a right wing argument against UBI. If you receive 5 recruiter calls per day begging to take an employer's money, wages will go up, and demand will go up, forcing supply/competition to catch up to take/trickle back all of people's money back to corporatist ownership. UBI is not wealth redistribution, it is you getting more stuff while still having an end of month balance of $0.
More of a left argument. But individual empowerment means freedom from structural policies that drive rent extortion. UBI means you can share rent with certainty that they can pay rent. Landlord risk against tenants not paying going down, means less risk to renting basements and attics. You have the power to pay for moving expenses to escape asshole landlord policies, or structurally oppressive cities, without needing a job in new location first. UBI means you can afford home ownership and become a landlord yourself.
A leftist brainworm is that "classes of people are assholes" and can only be eaten as a solution. The truth is corrupt market power imbalances create resentment of the powerful. UBI allows for natural "perfect competition" (all the suppliers make a fair ROI for voluntarily participating) markets, which housing is one. I said this was a left criticism, but it's also a right criticism against inflation.
It's an absurd criticism, because UBI is freedom from government discretion. Although its the right that threatens to take away healthcare from classes of people (trans), SS is not up for discussion as "for republicans only". Medicaid is a "lower race" program that is attacked while Medicare is a "Republican constituency". UBI is power redistribution that doesn't give rise to the "American History X" accusations of "programs tilted just for the subhumans" divisiveness. We all get the same deserved dividend respresenting our equal ownership share of the country, and its tax revenue.
The UBI distribution organization is the IRS. Trump's IRS crony takeover is just about preventing audits for those who bribe him to ignore their tax fraud. It won't be used to change your/general people's refund formula.
How though? There's no mechanism in UBI to increase production to match the increased demand. If anything its could decrease production / supply as less people work and choose to just live off UBI. Increasing the amount of cash in the market doesn't increase productivity/ supply, otherwise printing money would work. Increasing aggregate demand / money without increasing aggregate supply / productivity just leads to inflation. This is what I mean by its myopic focus on consumption, production also needs to be considered. Everyone wants to focus on the "to each according to their needs" part and not the "from each according to their ability"
Yeah certain industries can scale up relatively cheaply to match this increased demand but things like housing which have a limited supply that expands relatively slowly will just see price increases. You said this could cause increased competition for landlords but it will also cause increased competition for housing.
If there are 4 houses and 5 households and before UBI 4 households made enough to afford $1,000 in rent and they got the 4 houses, after UBI of $1,000 the landlord can use the threat of renting to the homeless person to raise the rent until that homeless person is priced out again. If you increase the amount of money people have without increasing supply then the people will use that money to bid up prices until you're back to the old distribution of resources.
The alternative to UBI that the left has been pushing forever, especially the African American left, has been a universal jobs guarantee. Anyone can go into a government office and they'll give you a job with decent pay. Since you're putting people to work you can actually increase productivity and supply to match the new demand. You still get all the guarantees of income and the benefits that entails of getting out of bad situations but you also are able to pressure employers for better labor standards. If the government is offering a living wage for 3 days a week then other employers will have to match that. It's also more politically viable, trying to convince middle America that "free money" is a good thing will be a lot harder then convincing them that a jobs guarantee is good.