“The incentive to work would be the ability to live above the subsistence level.”
Except that “subsistence level” is pretty comfortable.
One incentive to work now instead of take welfare is the infuriating ugly red tape to get it. I’d rather work than try to navigate that rat’s nest. But if a $30,000 check just showed up in my mailbox each year, I’d be sore tempted to find arrangements to make it work. See, it’s that poverty is, short of Haiti type situations, the consequences of bad behavior. Give the “poor” a “living wage” and they’ll blow it, give the “rich” the same and they’ll do just fine.