Ironically, people who earn low wages makeup a huge chunk of their consumer base.
If minimum wage jobs keep disappearing it will hurt their business in the long run
not if universal income becomes a thing.So in the end the money will continue to cycle from the government to the poor and back into the pockets of the rich.We have always had the funds to fund 5,6,7,8,9 figure vanity projects that make the rich richer but yet we have no money to improve the infrastructure for the working poor.
It is an economically engineered design that has been going on for decades in which people have been financially better off when dependent on welfare despite creating an underclass that has helped companies like walmart to become a conglomerate.
So the same will be done with a universal based income which will be the same as minimum wage after taxes.And that will allow people to get up to their own devices(both positive and negative so drug use will be on the rise)and low budget consumerism will remain the same.The way america is socially structured I cannot see in how a universal based income will be beneficial in the long term.