Some jobs aren't paid enough for people to do and still afford to live. Basic income actually fixes that by giving people a baseline to live off, upon which their salary can build.
If those jobs "aren't paid enough for people to afford to live" then India should be full of a billion rotting corpses. I was there last week and I feel like I would have noticed the apocalypse.
A much better solution than BI would be a guaranteed job and/or an expanded EITC. These solutions - while not sounding as cool and hipster as BI - have no labor disincentive and cost a lot less.
Putting aside the absurd comparison of living costs in a 3rd world country vs 1st world...
India is filled with a ton of misery. It's the only country in the world where I saw dead people just lying in the gutter. The Mumbai slum was one of the worst places I've ever been and you want to hold that up as some sort of ideal? That people should just live down to that level instead of striving for better? If it wasn't for the Indian government welfare programs, that slum would be filled with rotting corpses.
I didn't hold it up as an ideal. I held up the middle class experience there as an example of what happens when labor isn't scarce.
You seem to think I'm endorsing having very few goods and services. I'm not. On the contrary, I oppose policies like BI which will reduce goods and services available.
Some jobs aren't paid enough for people to do and still afford to live. Basic income actually fixes that by giving people a baseline to live off, upon which their salary can build.