A UBI would hurt workers – it would be too small to solve, but would kill wages and expand poor jobs.

Today’s labor market is highly stratified: some people enjoy access to good jobs while others, subject to harsh competition, can only find precarious and unstable work. A low or moderate UBI — too low to let people refuse job offers — could relegate the least qualified people to more intensely precarious situations. As Luke Martinelli puts it: The lack of an exit option for such workers, and their weak bargaining position with respect to employers, means that basic income could end up exacerbating poor pay and conditions if other workers were willing to reduce their wage demands as a result of the unconditional payment. Martinelli highlights “the danger that basic income ‘would aggravate the problem of low pay and subsidize inefficient employers,’ leading to a proliferation of ‘lousy’ jobs.” In this scenario, those with good jobs will continue to lead fulfilling lives, now supplemented by universal income, while others will have to combine their UBI with one or more “lousy” jobs, with little gain in income. The proposal makes no attempt to help those without a job today get one tomorrow or improve the job they have. Indeed, everything suggests that the opposite will happen: the UBI will function like a war machine for lowering wages and spreading precarious work.