Rent Control And Minimum Wage Essay

I believe that the time has come to get rid of rent controls and minimum wages. I am aware that the government would not be able to completely abolish either of these over night, however steps towards getting rid of the these laws and policies need to be made. I do not think that rent controls or minimum wage have achieved there purposes and I believe there have been much greater unintended consequences than actual results.

Rent controls make it sometimes impossible for people who rent out houses to make any profit off of their business. When rent has to be so low, renters no longer worry as much about fixing broken appliances or keep apartments or homes safe because they do not make enough money to fix these things when they are forced to have such low renting prices. Lower prices will increase the demand for rental housing, however they reduce the amount the landlords are willing to offer which reflects the supply. With renting costs being so low, landlords will not be able to maintain all housing at a low cost so they will have to shut down some housing and possibly abandon the business all together.

Having higher minimum wage costs has the similar affect. The government claims that higher minimum wage will create low-skilled workers who are willing to work more which is an increase in supply. With higher wages to pay workers,

For example, the government claims that higher wages increase a workers willingness to work. If this is so then what they are also saying is that lower wages decreases a workers willingness to work. Which sounds fine, until you apply that theory to the rent control laws. If rent controls force lower prices than a landlords willingness to provide quality housing must decrease as well. Along with that, the opposite would mean that allowing landlords to increase prices would increase their willingness to provide better quality and quantity