The shutdown response to the pandemic is the trigger for the latest discussions on UBI, although I am confident that a lot of businesses are going to invest in automation technologies to cut down on operating costs moving forward; which means less jobs.
The economy just isn't that simple, though. Increased productivity often results in products becoming cheaper and wealth becoming more abundant, rather than job loss.
So in simplistic terms, as car manufacturing becomes more automated and productivity increases, we don't shrink the labour force, we just make more cars, and consumers buy more cars, and more families have two or more cars, and people keep their cars for shorter periods if time before replacing them.
Implementing a UBI would mean fewer cars, meaning that you need to convince people they would prefer, say, for one of the adults to stay home, over having a second or larger family car. Which... fair enough. Different people and families would make different choices.
The problem is, that's already the sort of choice that the economy forces us to make. Most people only pretend it's not a choice because they want the second car... and the iPhone... and the brand Cable TV.
The main reward from a UBI will go to people who are disabled or addicts or have mental health issues that prevent them from working (or that just refuse to work). But I don't know how you keep inflation from making the UBI a large enough amount to pull people out of poverty. The higher the payment in nominal dollars, the more inclined people are to stop working, the lower the productivity, the lower the supply, the higher the demand, the higher the prices, the lower the payment in real dollars.
