[rm_-rf_slash]

Most restaurants derive most of their cost from labor. With basic income in and minimum wage out, you can pay people much less than you had to before. Yes, you may pay more in taxes, but that's from profit after everything else has been taken care of.

So if you end up with less total profit than before, it sucks, but your control over the situation is far more variable than if you had to simply suck it up and plan to pay your $9.00/hr dishwasher at least $15/hr in three years.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Most restaurants derive most of their cost from labor. With basic income in and minimum wage out, you can pay people much less than you had to before.

That's plainly false.

No one's going to wash dishes at Chain Restaurant #12 for 15 cents an hour, not even if the government is giving them $10,000/year. Infinite increase in their current effort for a 1% increase in annual income?

That's like the most pathologically slanted example of diminishing returns possible.

[1812Overture]

$5 per hour to double their income though? You'll have takers there.

[rm_-rf_slash]

Point missed, read my reply to the other comment.

[home_boi]

It's the opposite. The utility of money decreases as the amount of money owned/earned goes up. $9/hr to a person without basic income is worth more than $9/hr to a person with basic income.

Now people need more money to gain the same utility as they could have previously gained without basic income.

Why would people wash dishes if they didn't need to pay the bills?

[aninhumer]

I think there's a lot of untapped utility in better quality jobs, that doesn't get explored at the moment because people's first priority is getting enough money to survive.

Maybe no one wants to wash dishes (so buy a machine), but I imagine quite a lot of people actually enjoy being waiters, since you get to be directly helpful to a lot of people every day.

And now you're not afraid of being fired, you can even start to negotiate about the parts that suck. Obnoxious customers? Hey that restaurant down the street pays a bit less, but they're also willing to throw people out for being jerks. Maybe not going home upset once a month is worth a lot more to you than a new TV.

Things like this might not even cost the business very much, but they've never considered them because people take what they're given.

[rm_-rf_slash]

Sure, a dishwasher might not need to work to pay for rent and heat, but...

Can they afford nice clothing to attract people they like?

Can they save up for college? For their kids?

Can they play the latest games? See the latest movies?

Do they enjoy cigarettes, alcohol, or other recreational drugs?

Do they like to eat out?

Do they want a higher standard of living when they "retire?"

[home_boi]

People would be less willing to work for those goods than for rent and heat, so employers would have to pay higher wages.

[ambicapter]

Those people sound useless. The same way its less expensive to house the homeless than to chase around with cops, I feel like its better to just pay them to stay in their own little world.

[floppydisk]

Does the delta between lowering the cost of labor (assuming people will work for the lower wage) cover the tax increase?

Labor, in the service industry, is already handled like a variable cost. If you expect a rush, you increase the number of people on the shift and if you don't, you schedule the bar minimum. If there's mismatch between staffing and projected work - and say schedule too many people for what turns out to be a dead shift - they get sent home. Changing the minimum wage from $9/hr to $15/hr reduces the number of people you can run per shift and keep your costs the same (assuming all other inputs continue to cost the same). I.E. It costs me $30/hr to keep two waiters when I could run 3 for $27/hr so I cut back one waiter per shift.

Where the business gets in trouble, in terms of survival, is the price of fixed inputs. They need to buy goods and services that will fluctuate in price and if the cost of doing business goes up due to higher fixed costs in the form of taxes, those costs will reverberate through the chain. The food supplier will raise prices, the restaurant will need to raise its prices to afford the food, which will impact their ability to attract customers which impacts their ability to derive revenue to pay the food supplier, their tax bill, and so forth.

Similarly, if businesses are having to charge higher prices and wages are depressed due to UBI + <other wage>, will people have the money to afford goods and services at the higher rate?