BUI is only “better” insofar as it cuts out all the BS overhead red tape, insane regulations, and bizarre incentives - going straight to “fine, everyone is given a ‘welfare’ check for poverty-line income, live as you see fit”. If we’re _going_ to have a vast welfare state, that’s the sane way to do it.
Except it’s not sane, it just rejiggers the rules, gives people an easy reliance on the state, and frees up more people to spend more time (and money!) demanding their special cases be given even more $$$ for free.
In the end, “basic universal income” is NOT a “solution to poverty” precisely because it does NOT motivate people to produce more, it purports to meet their basic _consumptive_ needs - which a great many people will be quite satisfied with (even if they complain loudly about it) and thus be completely unmotivated to do more than the bare minimum to turn that free-money check into a tolerable living.
[sigh] I keep returning to assorted efforts I’ve made to help the poor - only to keep running into the exact reasons _WHY_ they’re poor, and grudgingly conclude that they’re living exactly the life they choose to. Kinda sucks to, for example, make a day’s meals for a needy family, only to find they’re living for free in a hotel room and lounging all day in their PJs watching TV while I’m expending my time/money/effort making their food from cheap staples and delivering it to them ... and they want a “guaranteed basic income”? how about me wanting “government get the he11 out of their way so they have no excuse to earn & make their own living”? [grunt]
That’s what Milton Freidman said too. Just cut everyone a check but get rid of the entire welfare, bureaucratic, and subsidies to poor people.