Yeah, modern welfare isn’t remotely enough to match the spirit of UBI. It’s structured so that you have to have a job. It’s not enough to live by at all. And bizarrely, there’s some jobs where they’d actually be worse than welfare because min wage is so crazy low in many parts of the US.

And even if you’re on disability, you’re gonna have a hard time. It pays barely enough to maybe scrape by if you cut every possible corner.

No form of welfare is close to being livable for the typical recipient. At best, they usually give you some spending cash while you live with friends or family. Maybe if you’re really lucky you can find that rare, rare subsidized housing and manage to just barely make ends meet.

By comparison, most proponents of UBI want it to be livable. Nothing glamorous, admittedly, but enough to live a modest life. Enough that if there’s no jobs available you qualify for (or none that will pay a living wage, at least), you’ll be okay.