The simplest model of utility (linear in money) basically says "people will take these jobs if they pay $X more than unemployment." With unemployment in the US paying $300/week more than it used to, jobs now need to pay about that much more than before to stay competitive -- about $7.50 an hour. So for a $15/hr job, the employer needs to pay $22.50 now.

A perhaps more realistic utility model has diminishing returns to money. The classic example is log($). Put simply, "people will work a job if it pays X times what unemployment does."

In that model, the $15/hr job at 40 hours/week pays $600 before tax. Say unemployment used to pay $300/week, so the job paid 2x unemployment, and now with the extra $300 of supplemental employment benefits it pays $600, so the job has to bump its pay up to $1200/wk or $30/hr to stay competitive.

That's a modeled kinda space of policy consequences -- wages go up 50% or 100% or there will be employment shortfalls even before thinking about childcare shortages, reduced immigration etc. That situation can be spun as "benefits too high" or "pay too low" to score political points or drive policy, but these effects are clearly explanatory either way.

I've been a UBI supporter my entire adult life, but that doesn't mean that what's effectively a lie of omission is good for the discourse. Then again, it's hard to expect otherwise from a rag like NPR.

It's laughable to make that comparison when the "survival stipend" is money for doing nothing. I'm not sure how any private enterprise can compete with that.