White Paper
Housing

HUD Secretary Carson: Regulation Keeps People Poor, Limits Innovation

Secretary Carson also pointed out that bureaucratic red tape doesn’t just slow the production of housing but also the efforts of people to end generational poverty.
June 14, 2019
Print This Article

At Forbes, I have a new post highlighting the efforts of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to promote innovation in housing construction and development. Such innovation is important and can reduce housing costs and prices for consumers, but local regulations lie in the way of finding those savings.

And at a panel during the Innovative Housing Showcase, HUD Secretary Ben Carson also pointed out that bureaucratic red tape doesn’t just slow the production of housing but also the efforts of people to end generational poverty. As noted at Forbes:

Carson acknowledged something I’ve pointed out before and that most social workers and people who live in poverty will tell you: regulations are not their friends. Milton Friedman supported a negative income tax because of the exact phenomenon described by Carson; when incomes go up because people work hard, their benefits go away. If someone increases their income because they add someone to their household, there is a serious potential that regulation will mean they will lose their housing benefit. I wrote about this in a post headlined, Liberal Economists Trust Poor People More Than Liberal Politicians. Carson gets this, and his HUD is trying to do something about it by creating more options for people who get housing benefits from the federal government.

You can read the whole post at Forbes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
">
Research Fellow, Housing