Everyone doesn't have basic income added to their income, unless the government is printing money to pay the basic income. Basic income redistributes funds from one or both of two other sources: 1. Existing social benefit programs benefits + administrative costs, and/or 2. Taxes, (in most proposals where additional tax revenue is seen as part of the funding stream, this is a progressive tax on total income).

That being said, the redistribution should result in more money chasing certain goods and services, which should increase the price for those. With realistic elasticity levels, the increase in price will be less, proportionally, than the increase in the quantity of money available for the goods/services, and the market clearing quantity of those goods/services produced and sold will increase.

It will also result in less money chasing other goods and services (public sector administration for the "replace conditional benefits program" part, and goods that are disportionately attractive to wealthier purchasers for the "funds from progressive income tax" part.)

That's the part I don't get. I can see doing a scaled, minimum income (payed nightly perhaps), but I'm not really sure about the whole basic income.

I get the feeling the cost savings of removing other programs would add up.

Indeed, I can't tell how inflation doesn't happen either - some people said above it wouldn't happen unless the government prints money, but that seems to be a very limited view of how inflation happens.

Obviously, if some people have more money than they had before - they have more buying power, and with more competition amongst buyers to purchase limited products, the prices of those products must rise. Added to this, the concept being thrown about that almost no one would work a low-paying job in such a system, you could consider a lot of your less expensive products/services to simply disappear. Meaning you get a double-edged sword on inflation: cheap production diminishes, and increased competition for more expensive products.

I'm sure there are a thousand economists and theorists who would like to say that's completely wrong, but I'd like to see it play out, and see where this goes. (Not that I agree that it would solve the problems people refer to: what happens when a mother spends her money poorly? We'll still say we have to bail the kids out, because they didn't have a choice. Other social welfare programs may shrink, but they won't go away for so long as we assume a duty to others, and accept that others won't always behave dutifully.)