Thoughts on Universal Basic Income and Standard of Living

With the rise of automation and advanced robotics interfacing, manual labor and many common jobs can be replaced with automated staff and equipment, and this has led to questions about the role of jobs as a means of income in the future.  One thought which has been proposed as a reaction to this is the idea of Universal Basic Income, an allocation of money or credit to citizens on a regular basis for the purpose of supporting a basic standard of living.

Minimum wage and the existing concept of a "standard of living" wage are similar in some regards to this, as a measure to ensure that someone who is working or productive in some manner is able to support themselves on a basic level.  If many jobs, sources of that basic income, become automated it could cause a lot of people to be in incredibly unfortunate circumstances to say the least.  And sure, that's not anyone else's problem, the world isn't fair.  Business is as business does.  I think leaving it at that though leaves us to decide if we're okay with the kind of society and structure which that creates, or perhaps more accurately, has created.

We should all be able to look out for ourselves, and I understand how that mentality is a part of resistance to the idea of a single-payer healthcare system(what does that mean exactly, you got me) - but I honestly think most people would think of a good country as one that affords its citizens a basic standard of living as seen by the existing minimum wage and labor laws, as well as ideas like Welfare and Social Security.  Putting a program into place like this is difficult, and arguably that difficulty of execution is what has led to the many shortcomings of Welfare and Social Security.  I don't think that means we shouldn't have a goal of better lives for our citizens.

Establishing what a "basic standard of living" is will be a difficult task, but one that is crucial to the ideas behind Universal Basic Income and similar concepts, as UBI is generally intended to provide access to that "basic standard of living".  My pitch and reason for posting, is that, what if, we could find a way to directly apply this Universal Basic Income to things like healthcare and housing?  What if you could opt to do this, or still go about your life while receiving the money or credit from the UBI?  What if there was an insurance provider through the government in addition to the existing options, which you could use your UBI for?

I don't know what would work, but I do know that I believe that as we make progress as a society and a civilization, we've become much more capable of offering better lives for all - and I think actually doing so is something to strive for.  In the spirit of Minimum Wage and Universal Basic Income, I think we should figure out the standard of living we expect and strive to meet that, to make that a reality.

Thanks for your time,
Alturiigo