But that is not how income taxes work. it works with brackets. And a person that makes 100,000 might need to pay back the 1,600 (or more) back. But a person that makes 100,000 will not renounce to that salary as he would lose a lot. And losing 1,600 (19,000, 10560 after taxes as it would be the last bracket) would not be the most substantial part of it. This person would continue working
A person that makes 20,000 a year, with a 1,600 would see his income almost doubling if it works. the tax bracket would be 20% losing 4K in the process if it decides to work, so basically keeping still 15,300 vs 17,874 (taxes would apply a bit over 12,570 if you would not work). That would mean that yes, you might have some incentive not to work if you would like to live with just over the cost of living for a while, but definitely you would like to do better over time. So a person with little job security can get by, can consume and sustain the industry and is not left behind.at the same time, they can have some spikes of work when the job market allows them to work
And yes, we can discuss that income taxes might be twitched to accommodate UBI, but it will not be linear and it will be proportional, so the idea would still stand
The idea is that, fortunately, the world is going to a phase that we will need to work less (finally) because technology will allow it. That will mean that there will be less job availability. rich will still be very rich and poor and middle class will still exist but will not have to work as much. UBI would be pure rent redistribution as the same way brackets work currently
UBI seems counterintuitive, for me as well, and if it is implemented, I am sure it will be a big feck up at the beginning but it will be twitched to make it work. It is redistribution and the first steps for a society with more free time based of what we built as society during the centuries but there is so many unknowns that can feck up a country, that is scary