> I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal.
Every single time we see results from a study on something like UBI, someone comes out with this argument—you missed the universal and the basic! Yes.
With that stipulated, how would you propose to test UBI before rolling it out on a country-wide scale? Every test I can think of that isn't just "implement UBI" will either fail the universal or the basic part, and "implement UBI" will never get the political will until it can be tested on a small scale first. Tests like this are the best way we know how to do it.
If you want UBI then you either are going to need to figure out how to work with incomplete tests or solve the problem of how to test UBI without just implementing it. We're not going to entirely restructure our economy because some folks on the internet think that UBI sounds great in theory.
I think the issue is that we don't really want or need UBI. We need to take a step back and think of the goal. Is that to help people that need it most? We can start with something to try to achieve that. Then continue to roll that forward.
We could try an approach like: People who make less than the poverty line pay no state/federal taxes. Each month you get direct deposit (no bureaucracy) to bring you up to poverty line for last month. Each month you get direct deposit (no bureaucracy) of up to $1000 or whatever would bring you to double the poverty line.
These programs would be automatic based on payroll tax filings and help the people who need UBI most. Also, we'd slowly be able to evolve these further to handle all benefit assistance programs and save a ton of money.