Yeah, I'm not surprised. I'm currently not working (living with parents), and personally, if I had a guaranteed $500 a month in my bank account I'd be much more willing to go out and get a job, regardless of how good or bad it is.
That $500 a month is a form of financial security; so I know that even if I get fired, I'll still have something to fall back on. It would ease the anxiety of having to deal with shitty managers, being potentially overworked, underpaid, etc, because it'd mean that if one job sucks, I can go find a different one without worrying that the rug was being completely pulled out from under my feet.
It also means that, if I am getting underpaid, I still potentially have some spending money that'll allow me some luxuries despite the low wage/salary being given to me by company I'm working for. That increases my flexibility for bullshit and allows me to be more tolerant of shitty managers.
The fact that you have to roll the dice and hope the company you're going to work for won't have shitty managers, low wages, overwork, etc is a real disincentive when you have family you can live with. That $500 a month makes the dice roll more tolerable.
My biggest concern is that if Universal Basic Income becomes, well, universal, then the cost of everything will likely spike in proportion to whatever UBI is. It's greedy, but logical that if all your tenants are getting $500 a month from the government, then that means you can raise their rent. Companies would also look at it and one department would say, "we can lower wages because of UBI" while another department says, "we can raise prices because people have more money via UBI". As such, the government would need to implement protections against such actions.
How do you do that though?
Do you peg the cost of rent to a formula based on land value, income, etc?
Do you peg the price of a product to the product's cost + X%?
Do you try and mandate wages based on performance, seniority, and job type?
At what point do you look at the tangle of laws and formulas and say, "this is insane; maybe instead of giving cash, we should give housing, food, water, electricity and other modern necessities."
Ultimately, I'm not sure any of the protections required for UBI to be successfull will be implemented. I'm not against the idea of UBI, but I don't trust the government (well, the US government anyway) to have the foresight to successfully pull it off.
Edit: At the end of the day, I don't want to live with my parents. I don't want to be unemployed, I don't want to feel like a drain on society, and I don't want to feel like I have nothing to offer to the world. I like to believe everyone has the potential to change the world for the better, either in a small way, or a big way. Right now I feel like I'm not doing anything, and I don't like it. However, I've had some very bad experiences with """unskilled""" jobs and the industry I've spent time training for (video games) is a fucking mess and is getting worse.
