[iamalexm]

Not just zoning reform, we need to make actual free housing for people. We have an economy that can't provide enough jobs. We have a surplus of goods. We don't need people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we just need to give people a place to live and some food to eat so they can contribute and potentially dig themselves out of any hole they have found themselves in.

[jdavis703]

Even government run public housing charges rent. Making housing free will mean even larger subsidies are required for construction, which means fewer units built overall.

[dragonwriter]

> Even government run public housing charges rent.

IIRC, the norm is sliding-scale income contingent with a minimum of zero, so, it only sometimes charges rent, and has costs associated with identifying whether to charge and, if so, the rent to charge, charging, tracking, and collecting it.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

We’re well beyond the point where this is a valid argument to make.

[rufus_foreman]

>> We have an economy that can't provide enough jobs

That's so wrong. There are more job openings right now than there are unemployed workers. Explain it to me, how is that "an economy that can't provide enough jobs"?

[imtringued]

Think about it this way. If there were enough good paying jobs around for everyone then recessions would be impossible because people always have the option to switch to a good job.

[6f8986c3]

> We have an economy that can't provide enough jobs.

Bullshit. There is plenty of work that needs to be done.

People are just paid to not do it. In urban areas, they become political slaves, and in rural areas, it destroys any chance they might have of building a local economy.

[tehwebguy]

Citation needed!

This bad meme became very popular when the federal gov paid out an extra $600 (then $400, then $300) / wk in unemployment insurance benefits. In reality UI benefits have been utterly destroyed in some states (see FL -- underfunded, payout is dirt and getting approved or denied took people months) and in the rest of the states the payouts are so low they were totally insufficient.

Perhaps the biggest lie, however, is that people can just stay on these benefits or turn down work -- they are time limited per recipient and turning down work / quitting your job makes you ineligible!