I think it’s naive to assume everyone would keep working at the level needed to maintain our society. The article mentioned it, but didn’t offer any good solutions to the “menial, but necessary” jobs problem as they put it. Their suggestion was that employers would have to offer extra benefits to get employees to work more.

The issue is that in my experience people are never going to work more than they have to. All those low-paying jobs that most don’t like doing affect my day-to-day life many times more than the ones with free thought which people would be more drawn towards if they didn’t have to worry about their finances due to a universal wage. Not everyone may hate their jobs but there are many jobs that no one would do without a good incentive. I think most people underestimate how much those employees are needed as well.

One day technology may take away so many jobs that we will be forced to pay a universal wage so people can survive. Until then I think it goes without saying that supplementing people’s income will cause at least some, if not a lot of menial laborers to work less which will directly impact our society.