This is why we should support basic-income or minimum-income.
Then NO ONE is left out to starve, ever. People would still get jobs to get MORE money, because people always want more, but you could eliminate minimum/living wage laws, so the marginal cost of production at jobs that people enjoyed could actually go down, while at the same time more people would have money to spend.
People always want more money, but they won't necessarily want to work for it. Is there any evidence for a sufficient willingness to work under a basic income arrangement to keep the economy going?
Evidence? Sure. How about a direct test? It was found that, even with all basic needs covered, output decreased for only two segments of the population. Teenagers in school, and new mothers. Everyone else coninued working because (1) having more disposable income is nice and (2) it gets boring otherwise.
I don't see why everyone needs to work in order to keep the economy going. Suppose in the future we've managed to completely and fully automate all the work that was done by humans in 2014. Shouldn't we be able to maintain the standard of living of 2014 indefinitely, with no human "work" to speak of? (Assuming, of course, that our standard of living in 2014 is sustainable to begin with.)
Look at all makers of various trades - from open source software developers to hardware hackers to artists and craftsmen; there's a lot of people who are very productive doing things for free, and for whom having to earn money is only an annoying distraction - something you have to do to have food and shelter, so that you can do things that you actually care about.
I'm not arguing that everyone is like that - but from one can see today, I don't think humans in general are lazy and need to be forced to work.
...with the addition of occasional riots, and eventually (typically) a revolution of one kind or another.
I prefer the kind of "functioning" where no one is starving. You see violent and other crime drop quickly as a society's quality of life improves, so even if I'm one of the ones "on top", my own QoL is better not having to worry as much about someone stealing things from me.
Then NO ONE is left out to starve, ever. People would still get jobs to get MORE money, because people always want more, but you could eliminate minimum/living wage laws, so the marginal cost of production at jobs that people enjoyed could actually go down, while at the same time more people would have money to spend.
The transition is the hard part.