'They don't need to lift a finger': Landlords are not workers

25 October 2024, 15:00

It would be hard to find any serious economist who would disagree with Keir Starmer when he says that landlords are not workers.

A worker is straightforwardly defined as someone who earns money by doing a job that produces a good or service. Teachers educate students, mechanics repair cars, and nurses care for patients.

In contrast, landlords don’t need to lift a finger to generate rental income. The money they receive as rent is a byproduct of simply owning property and charging others to use it rather than from any labour they perform. In other words, being a landlord is not a job.

Some smaller landlords might argue that they do work to manage and maintain their properties, like painting walls or fixing broken taps. In these instances, they may act in a dual role as both worker and landlord. However, economically speaking, these are distinct roles. Any maintenance work merely adds value to their asset and is incidental to their role as a landlord.

Their income ultimately comes not from these tasks but from controlling access to the property. Given that tenants typically interact with their landlords just a handful of times per year, if landlords were paid solely based on their labour rather than on property ownership, rental income as we know it would virtually disappear.

Landlords might also claim that they are ‘housing providers’, and without them tenants would be homeless. But even this claim is tenuous: ultimately, if landlords all decided to stop being landlords their houses wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke.

The COVID-19 pandemic made clear who truly keeps the world turning—and it wasn’t landlords or shareholders. It was healthcare workers, delivery drivers, and others whose work is essential to the day-to-day functioning of society.

If we want a fairer Britain, the government should prioritise rewarding those who create value and, at the very least, tax income derived from asset ownership at the same rate as income from work.

Fourteen years of austerity have left public services in urgent need of investment. This uproar is little more than a controversy manufactured by pro-landlord groups, not only eager to justify their existence but also intent on avoiding being levied their fair share of tax.

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Nick Ballard is head organiser at ACORN.

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