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“It’s a disgrace to see people sleeping on the streets with this material wealth all around them,” Branson said.

People sleeping on the streets has nothing to do with "income inequality" or even a shortage of affordable housing, as is often claimed. Actual "sleeping on the streets" homelessness is quite rare, and largely the result of mental illness and drug abuse. "Basic income," which is one of the most economically illiterate ideas I've ever heard, will do absolutely nothing for these people.

Basic income is a problem in search of a solution. As Walter E. Williams recently pointed out, "There is virtually no material poverty in the U.S." Today, "poverty" is misleadingly defined in relative rather than absolute terms, labeling people as "impoverished" who are lacking none of life's necessities, have access to significant luxuries, and enjoy a standard of living greater than what would be considered "middle class" in most of the world.

Universal basic income would not cure poverty. It would just become the new standard of poverty, with constant demands for a "living UBI," just as we see with the minimum wage today.