> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.

This is part of the problem, and one that many people actively want to avoid discussing so it is important to discuss it, but it is only part of the problem.

I think for real reform in this area you need to have the government strictly regulate rental properties.

That includes determining the rental price, and imposing fines for empty units.

Every time there is a stimulus check or an increase in minimum wage the detractors say "this will just be captured by the landlords".

We need to have clear stipulations for rental prices and ideally link it to another value that also changes over time.

I would argue a 1 bedroom apartment should have its rent capped at less than 40% of the monthly take home of someone on minimum wage.

Let the landlords and employers battle over who gets the bigger slice of that pie, while allowing the workers to survive their petty skirmish.

Here is Adam Smith talking about a minimum wage:

> A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that, one with another, they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself: But one half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest labourers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above-mentioned, or any other, I shall not take upon me to determine.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap1...

In what US city can someone on minimum wage raise two children? On the US federal minimum wage?!