unearned increment

American  

noun

1. the increase in the value of property, especially land, due to natural causes, as growth of population, rather than to any labor or expenditure by the owner.

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unearned increment British  

noun

1. a rise in the market value of landed property resulting from general economic factors

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Etymology

Origin of unearned increment

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

unearned increment

But severe levies on unearned increment jack up the rate in some brackets as high as the Federal tax.

From Time Magazine Archive

Adoption of the single tax would do away with the profits which come from land appreciation and are known as unearned increment or economic rent.

From Time Magazine Archive

This unearned increment is now accruing to the Board on every acre that has been purchased.

From The Choctaw Freedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy by Flickinger, Robert Elliott

He had absorbed the unearned increment and I had my original capital, the bean poles, intact-and that's more than most of us realize on small investments, nowadays.

From Old Plymouth Trails by Packard, Winthrop

Her income and creditor classes are daily in receipt of an unearned increment to their wealth by reason of that demonetization.

From Money: Speech of Hon. John P. Jones, of Nevada, On the Free Coinage of Silver; in the United States Senate, May 12 and 13, 1890 by Jones, John P. (John Percival)