this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024

804 points (98.4% liked)

News

23275 readers

3437 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

rjc@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

dezmd@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

JonsJava@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

Blackbeard@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

jeffw@lemmy.world

enu@lemmy.world

804

Austin experimented with giving people $1,000 a month. They spent the no-strings-attached cash mostly on housing, a study found (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

169 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago

This is one of mine. I started lobbying for it in 2015 when even all in our group looked at me like I'm crazy. Not so crazy now, am I?

Before anyone asks, Austin is very much so a small town in some ways. Many tech folk moved in for the dot-com boom and never left because we fell in love with the town. We also stayed friends and we communicate often, even as we all moved on to do bigger and better things. Sometimes, all it takes is an e-mail thread to make change.

If there is a pot hole on the street, and the city isn't fixing it, organize a few people. You might find that someone in your community has the tools you need, and someone else has left over materials.

[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 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.

[–] BlackPenguins@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

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

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] just_change_it@lemmy.world 6 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?

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 9 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.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

It's not and he's wrong. UBI will definitely cause some inflation when people spend the money, but the money will come from somewhere (probably wealthier people or corporations). So that taxation will reduce inflation at the same time.

If the money came from a tax on rental income, it would not hurt renters. It would probably just be a circle: where owners are taxed and the money goes to renters, who then spend it on rent. It may help people buy houses because they now have free money regardless of whether they spend it on rent.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 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)

load more comments (13 replies)

[–] ef9357@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 9 months ago

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

load more comments