They'll have to raise the wage to get anyone to scrub those toilets, and that's the whole point. UBI reduces the power asymmetry between employer and employee, and gives the employee more leverage to negotiate better wages and conditions.
The price level at which it's economical to pay someone wages that incentive them to work as a janitor rather than investing in themselves is the price level at which the janitor cannot afford to invest in themselves without work.
I'd buy that the janitor might be a bit better off in this situation, but you haven't solved any critical problems. Your basic income quickly becomes insufficient. Without controls for rent, debt, medical, schooling, etc. it's not hard to imagine that in real terms the poor become poorer.
No, not necessarily. In fact if they were able raise prices, surely they would have done so already? What they would actually do is either go without a janitor, or go without something else - a coffee machine, or computer upgrades or something.
The point is, unskilled labour is currently priced against desperation on the part of the worker. With a UBI it's priced against the actual benefit to the consumer.
The question is, what value is having clean toilets? If a company in an office block doesn't value clean toilets more than anyone is willing to clean the toilets for, then they will just be dirty. In actual fact they are likely to value clean toilets highly - more than what someone is willing to clean them for.
I think you're underestimating the necessity of janitors, but for the sake of arguments, let's switch to another low paid shitty job that's definitely necessary. Say... slaughterhouse workers. A lot of food products are extremely competitive and run on super thin margins. An increase to gross costs means prices must rise or you'll be running a loss on each one. You can't just hand wave that off with coffee machines. Most businesses that aren't fancy tech companies are really cheap when it comes to employee benefits to begin with.
> The point is, unskilled labour is currently priced against desperation on the part of the worker. With a UBI it's priced against the actual benefit to the consumer.
I get that's the point. I contest that this strategy makes any sense. A lot the economy is premised on people doing unpleasant jobs because they require a paycheck to live. Current prices cannot pay for premium blue collar labor. The jobs that can't be moved will need to pay more and raise prices. Anything that can be moved will have massively increased incentive to outsource to another country.
And then you have a real trap. If everyone has a UBI, but prices rise, your UBI is no longer sufficient, but your doubly f*ed because there's fewer jobs in your country because labor is way cheaper elsewhere. So your would-be factory workers don't have a less than basic wage and no factory to work at.
More simply, however, if you recognize that we need these jobs to be done (we do), then you have a much easier option available to you than implementing ubi: raising the minimum wage.
* Only affects those at the very bottom
* Does not require more new government spending than any project ever before
* Doesn't create any incentives for people, especially low skilled, low wage, but necessary labor
The last point is perhaps the most important. All the low skilled workers are still going to do their jobs. Prices might rise a bit, some companies might choose to layoff some workers, and at scale globalization may still take a toll; but you don't have the terrifying risk that half of your low level workforce decides they're ok to just relax or acquire more skills.
It's not as impactful as the lofty goals of UBI for sure... but the only way society is going to work with poor people not requiring a job to survive is if they agree, wholly in spite of their best interests, to work the shitty jobs anyway.
There's plenty of middle-ground with similarly minded goals, like paying people to stay at home and raise their kids that make plenty of sense. UBI is cool if we don't need poor people... but we do, and we probably always will. The ideal strategy recognizes this and instead tries to minimize harm done to poor people as a result of poverty