Yesterday, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) tweeted out a graph showing the price of rent over time, along with a caption saying, “Letting in too many people drives up housing costs for normal Americans. Stop Biden’s border crisis, and stop his war on home affordability.”

His argument is clear: immigration brings more people into our towns, which increases demand for housing and thus raises rent prices. In the long run, we can attribute high rents to rising numbers of immigrants. So, if we would like to reduce demand and lower prices, then reducing immigration is likely the best solution. On the surface, it sounds like econ 101.

BIDEN'S DELUSIONAL G7 PRESS CONFERENCE

However, his argument misses something crucial: namely, that we have a housing market plagued by rules and regulations that discourage the construction of new units. Zoning regulations that severely limit or even prohibit the construction of multi-family units are commonplace, and even in places where such units are permitted, there are often laws that require a public hearing for the project to be approved. Additionally, specific requirements related to parking, building height, and much more dim the prospect of building new units.

COVID-era rent moratoria — which created uncertainty for landlords, leading to some taking their units off the market — and the prospect of a rent control renaissance make the problem worse.

And on the argument that data show immigration is associated with higher rents? This is still working under the assumption of restricted housing supply. Of course increasing the population in a supply-restricted housing market will ultimately raise prices. However, a fair observer will be able to recognize that it is those restrictions that make it difficult for the housing supply to remain adequate that are the problem here, not necessarily the additional people.

Thus, we can conclude that the way to lower housing prices is by building more housing.

In a later tweet, Vance acknowledges this critique of his original argument. To the point that we must build more units, he wrote, “I agree! We should build more. But I also live in the real world, and until we build more housing, our immigration policies are stealing good, low-cost housing from our citizens.”

Some progress was made here, but Vance’s ultimate judgment remained unchanged: the best and easiest way to lower rent is by restricting immigration. But there are two issues with this.

First, the population increase over time is significantly lower than the rent increase over time. And, of the total population increase over time, only a small portion of it came from immigration.

This suggests that mere population growth is not to blame for rising rents. Therefore, we must assume that there is something deeper going on. In the real world, that something is likely the fact population growth has exceeded housing growth for decades now, causing higher prices. The solution, then, is to try to close that gap by adopting policies that encourage new housing.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Second, even if we assume Vance’s argument is accurate, then it is still only a Band-Aid fix. We would still be left with a significant housing shortage, no real plan on how to deal with it, and losing out on the value immigrants can bring to our economy. The reason incentivizing new housing construction is vital is that it gets to the root of the problem and provides a long-term solution.

The problem of rising rents is important to address — as is our immigration policy, which must be seriously reconsidered. But Vance’s quick fix really doesn’t really have the ability to fix anything at all.