With rents rising, lawmakers in several states want to impose rent control. Eventually, this will make life harder for the very people the policy is intended to help. Here’s why:
While
a tenant remains in an apartment, rent control requires the landlord to keep
the rent level, even if the tenant remains in the apartment for years, paying
amounts way too low in relation to the landlord’s higher other costs. Who is this
likely to benefit?
Older,
prosperous people who seldom move because their lives are stable.
When
tenants move out, the landlord can lift the rent to market rates for the new
tenants. Who is likely to pay the higher rates?
Younger
and less prosperous people who move often and whose lives are less stable.
In
place of rent control, government should keep the rents at market rates and
encourage builders to construct more apartments.
But
why haven’t the builders already constructed more apartments?
Because
of building-restrictions.
Well
then, government could help the poor by removing the restrictions.
Ah,
but why were the building-restrictions imposed in the first place?
Mostly
because voters who are relatively prosperous and whose lives are stable demanded
it.
Time
and again, government policies help the rich at the expense of the poor.
