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Comment by Futurebot | Hacker News Reader

We should welcome this. For those left in the job market:

- remuneration would likely improve

- only motivated people would be left, so "pretending" to enjoy a job and all other kinds of fakery diminishes

- artificial competition for jobs would decrease drastically

- the ability to change jobs becomes extremely fluid on both sides of the table(with liberalized hire/fire policies [employer-side] plus a lack of worry about winding up in the street [worker-side])

This is a very large net benefit to the motivated. The sooner those who don't want to be there get to stop working, the better for the rest. An "arts, sports, and leisure (which may take the form of beer or video games)" is going to happen, and we should be happy to allow it for those who want nothing more.

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-"remuneration would likely improve"

why?

-"artificial competition for jobs would decrease drastically"

why is artificial competition important? You are saying that it will be easier for qualified people to get jobs because unqualified people won't bother to apply any more?

Rumeneration would improve because of the reduction in the number of people in the "reserved labor" pool, which means lower competition for each position (currently, there are 3 people for each available job opening, as an example), which raises wages. Additionally, the existence of an alternative income stream means that you cannot use the threat of "no income" to hold wages down. Finally, these same forces will mean that "dirty" jobs will no longer be able to bank on the marginal status of potential employees to keep their wages lower - the example of the toilet scrubber (before we get toilet cleaning Roombas, of course) is a useful one. If a potential toilet scrubber can think "do I do this dirty job for only slightly more than the BI, or do I find another one?", then the wage is forced to rise if you want someone scrubbing your toilet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour

Artificial competition going away is important, because it reduces the "fake" demand for positions; those that would rather not be there won't, which takes the pressure off that position (reducing its perceived scarcity/value.) This has both the above-described wage effects, and a cultural effect: you no longer have people pretending that they want a job, lying to get jobs, inflating their resumes, gladhanding, etc. You're only there if you want to be.

Given a reasonable implementation, I would expect a rise in consumption. It would of course be one time (but sustained). So industries and jobs that serviced that consumption should be able to grow, which usually brings higher pay.

Also, if inflation stayed in hand, the basic income itself would look an awful lot like a raise.

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