I am not that interested in arguing about UBI on a day-to-day basis, but I’ve now seen one silly argument against it enough times that I feel compelled to intervene. The argument is this:

In fact, workers may not even see much of the benefit of their UBI check: if their new gains are simply passed on to landlords and merchants through higher rent and prices, the benefits will be entirely illusory, even as people appear to be receiving an enormous handout.

Perhaps this argument comes up a lot because those in the chattering classes often live in areas where local policymakers refuse to do things to keep rents under control, e.g. by building out more space or fixing prices. But even if you live in such an area, it is still a shocking theory.

Its advocates may not realize how shocking it is because, in their mind, what they are arguing is that a UBI leads to higher rents that consume the value of the UBI. But what they are actually arguing is that a UBI increases disposable incomes and that increasing disposable incomes leads to higher rents that consume the value of the income increase. Stated this way, the shocking nature of the theory becomes clear: if true, the theory predicts that anything that increases people’s incomes is pointless.

The Fight for $15 is pointless. The fight for unions that can negotiate higher wages is pointless. The fight for a more generous welfare state is pointless. Nearly everything that people talk about with respect to the economy and what could be done to improve the plight of the bottom half is actually pointless. Why? Because in all cases the internal mechanism of those proposals — increasing disposable incomes — is counteracted by a corresponding rise in rents, according to this particular anti-UBI theory.

Needless to say, I think the theory is pretty obviously false. Rises in disposable incomes generally do leave people better off, even net of rent payments, even in places where local authorities allow the price of space to spiral out of control.

But if you think it is true, you really should ask yourself what the source of the problem you have identified is. If it’s the case that higher minimum wages, stronger unions, and more generous welfare states are all helpless against rent hikes, then maybe the issue you are worried about has nothing to do with the UBI and everything to do with your area’s dumb housing policy.