Assumptions
There are a couple of assumptions that I'd like to question:
1. I feel this implies that there are infinite jobs available and we just need to incentivise people to do them. I suggest there are actually a surplus of workers and a shortage of jobs. So actually, fewer people working is not such a problem economically. Related, many of the jobs in our economy are zero-sum games, from which there is no "net" benefit. I suggest we don't need to worry so much about motivating people to work harder. One of the benefits of basic income is to allow people more control over what they do - and I believe people may tend towards more meaningful "net benefit" work, when they are less financially forced to take whatever is available.</li>
2. Similarly, it suggests that once we get everybody over the poverty trap there is a virtuous circle that causes things to get better for everyone. There isn't room for everyone to be doing highly paid jobs - again, there isn't an infinite supply of work at all levels. So i'm not sure about the suggestion that people would all climb higher.
Perhaps one of the impacts would be an improvement in employment pay and standards at the lower end (as business competes for a workforce which doesn't rely upon them with quite so much desperation) - leading to an increase in the rate of automation (through improved cost/benefit of replacing workers), and therefore even fewer available jobs. The real problem is how we make sure people can live meaningful lives if there isn't paid work available. Basic income both exacerbates this problem and potentially offers part of the solution. I'd posit that another part would be trying to share out the available work somehow, with more people working fewer hours each.
I realise mine is obviously also a very simplified model, in assuming an entirely fixed amount of available work, but some thoughts to share.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
