The point of basic income is that it is universal. It is fundamentally a social welfare program, but it is designed to be a more effective one. By far one of the biggest problems of being poor and especially unemployed is lack of cash flow. This doesn't just get in the way of living a "luxurious" lifestyle, but it causes fundamental problems which can drastically reduce quality of life and often increases the cost of living. This is a well known problem, people with very little money end up forced buying things of low quality, and they end up getting less value for their money, they also find themselves in emergencies because they are unable to pay for essentials.
Moreover, there are huge problems related to improperly aligned incentives when it comes to traditional social welfare programs. With UBI the incentives are, however, very properly aligned. If you want to make more money, if you want to improve the quality of your life, then you can seek progressively higher paying work to do so. UBI merely sets a floor on the minimum level of quality of life that is possible. It does not destroy an incentive to work it merely destroys the coercion to work any job whatsoever in order to avoid starvation. Personally I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Additionally, your point about elimination of the income tax on lower income brackets is tone deaf. This already exists today. The bottom 40% of incomes in the US pay essentially no federal income tax, with many people in those income ranges receiving money back from the federal government in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
I think the point is that it will always be beneficial to work. Whether people choose to do so and can find something right there is another discussion but with a base income thats livable you have a base and every thing you do whether that is only one more job is going to make you a little richer instead of the current system where it's all based on conditional thinking.
To give an example. In Denmark the book that determines the laws when it comes to unemployment benefits is 26.000 pages.
That's a lot of bureaucracy which can be killed right there.
Actually it would make working more beneficial by getting rid of the terrible, exploitative jobs that exists only because many people are desperate enough to take while removing the welfare trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap
The point of basic income is that it is universal. It is fundamentally a social welfare program, but it is designed to be a more effective one. By far one of the biggest problems of being poor and especially unemployed is lack of cash flow. This doesn't just get in the way of living a "luxurious" lifestyle, but it causes fundamental problems which can drastically reduce quality of life and often increases the cost of living. This is a well known problem, people with very little money end up forced buying things of low quality, and they end up getting less value for their money, they also find themselves in emergencies because they are unable to pay for essentials.
Moreover, there are huge problems related to improperly aligned incentives when it comes to traditional social welfare programs. With UBI the incentives are, however, very properly aligned. If you want to make more money, if you want to improve the quality of your life, then you can seek progressively higher paying work to do so. UBI merely sets a floor on the minimum level of quality of life that is possible. It does not destroy an incentive to work it merely destroys the coercion to work any job whatsoever in order to avoid starvation. Personally I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Additionally, your point about elimination of the income tax on lower income brackets is tone deaf. This already exists today. The bottom 40% of incomes in the US pay essentially no federal income tax, with many people in those income ranges receiving money back from the federal government in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.