Jonah Goldberg Tribune Content Agency July 4, 2026 - 9:01 pm Late last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a citywide freeze on rents. The response from economists can be summarized as “oy.” Economists are famous for arguing “on one hand” this and “on the other hand” that. This is why President Harry Truman famously wanted to hire a one-handed economist. Nonetheless, there are few issues that enjoy a broader consensus among economists than the conclusion that rent control is counterproductive. Surveys of leading economists going back nearly four decades confirm this. A 1990 poll of 464 economists found that 93 percent of American respondents agreed that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available” — 95 percent of Canadian economists had a simil