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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

Any economics research into why this would, or would not, be a good idea? There are often unintended consequences to such a large change. My understanding, for example, is that having the tax deduction for home buyers simply leads to higher home prices.

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> tax deduction for home buyers simply leads to higher home prices

This is actually a desired effect of a basic income. The poorest people often live in areas that are essentially cash starved with low real estate prices. There is often little incentive or ability to improve or maintain their homes. A basic income would provide the ability for many in such areas to spend on non essentials like home maintenance which could lead to higher prices and higher employment. Which in turn could lead to more pride in ownership and eventually end up re-invigorating those areas.

The poorest people rent, so they have minimal incentive to improve their homes, whilst the relatively-wealthy landlords they rent from have every incentive to increase the rent, because their tenants' income has just gone up by 20% or more (as have their own taxes...) but little incentive to improve the property because the supply of low-end housing hasn't changed.

I agree that some of the basic income given to some members of the working poor will end up being spent on productive improvements that benefit themselves and the people they hire to do it, but a lot of it will simply be gobbled up by inflation of essentials.

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