Universal Basic Income Can Work, and Here's How: Andrew Yang

Rent control doesn't work long term [0]. If you have a healthy housing market, then normal market forces will keep rents down. That is not to say that creating a healthy housing market is easy, but it is a different problem.

At a high level, UBI is a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor [1]. One extreme is that 100% of the additional wealth received by the poor goes to rent, another extreme is that 0% does. [2]. The number will probably fall someplace in the middle, along with inflation on other assets. Regardless of what asset classes see what inflation, and what the exact amount of inflation is, the bottom tier of wealth/income people will control a bigger share of buying power, which should help them in aggregate.

Returning to the housing question, there is reason to think that UBI will improve the health of housing markets. One of the major issues in housing we are seeing is economic activity being concentrated in a few wealthy areas, driving up local housing prices. In addition to being a wealth transfer on an individual level, UBI is also a wealth transfer on a geographical level, where money goes from the few rich centers to the less rich areas. On the margins, this will cause people to move away from the high-demand areas and into the low-demand areas. I doubt this force will be strong enough to fix all of our housing markets, but I would expect it to help.

[0] Although it can work as a policy to shift market risks from the renter to the landlord; which may be worth doing.

[1] Assuming a rational funding system.

[2] Conceivably, the numbers could pass either bound, but I think that possibility falls clearly in the 'you need more specific justification; bucket.

You are assuming that he is trying to win. Being 1 issue is a great way of advocating for that issue. If you aren't going to win anyway, it is probably a more influential approach than trying to advocate a little bit for everything. He got the idea into the national discourse. Now 4/8/16 years from now, we are more likely to hear it from more viable candidates. Just look at what happened with Bernie's policy positions (although his were so popular that he someone managed to almost win the primary).

As an added bonus to Yang, this could give him name recognition that would be beneficial for his future political career.

There will surely be people who pay a lot more tax than they receive in UBI. The key thing is not to build an elaborate gameable system to decide who should be eligible for UBI and what it may be used for.

Depends. Are we printing the money? If so, how much?

If we print enough money, eventually we will get inflation...