[jlokier]

> If you add the UBI to their income they'll be hugely better off and they might even be able to choose

Maybe, maybe not.

For clarity, I am a fan of UBI. But I'd like to run through a hypothesis about an adverse effect.

If you add the UBI and costs go up accordingly, the real, marginal benefit they can obtain by working for $3.25 an hour will actually decrease.

This means someone who is in circumstances where they can currently earn a meagre income to tip the balance to being able to make ends meet in that circumstance, will find their ability to work the same amount in a UBI world will not tip the balance to being able to make ends meet.

In other words they will be pushed to change circumstance, towards more work and/or lower cost. E.g. move somewhere cheaper, work more hours.

This does not sound like a net benefit for the already impoverished. It sounds like a trap, because low-wage working will provide less marginal benefit to change what people can afford when they are stuck.

[zentiggr]

I can't see your logic.

If someone is making ends meet by working at your (illegally low) wage, then having that wage _plus_ UBI means that they are UBI rate / existing wage times better off.

The wage's percentage of total income dropping is a red herring.

No one will be pushed to work more when they have _more_ resources at hand.

[jlokier]

I think you haven't taken into account the adjustment to prices that happens, eventually, as the market responds to everyone being on UBI.

That's why I wrote "real", as in adjusted for inflation.