Both the unproductive spending and the tax to “pay for” it would be wildly inflationary and would quickly eat up the benefit. Increasing the benefit to keep up with inflation then only compounds the problem. We already have a UBI “for those who need it”. It only has to be expanded to better serve the purpose. It’s called Social Security.

Any useful safety net that doesn’t become inflationary must be countercyclical to the business cycle, otherwise, it is just welfare for employers. Good luck talking the boss into a raise when you are receiving $1000 per month in a check from Treasury. Wages would immediately stagnate and any safety nets to catch the bottom earners would be sacrificed to pay for the folly.

A much better approach that provides a floor for private employers and is countercyclical is Bernie’s Federal Job Guarantee that makes a livable wage job with benefits available to anyone able and willing to work at their discretion. It would be administered at the local level to supply much-needed labor and funding to communities and would anchor the economy in the hourly wage, not capital.

Employers would gain the advantage of a stable of “employed” workers with social and job skills intact when they need to expand their workforce and the practice of forcing unemployment on “first fired/last hired” demographics via monetary policy to control inflation (which has not proven of much use) would end. Anyone who has walked through an urban neighborhood or rural small town could produce a long list of things needing to be done but offering no potential for profit to private business. The program would not be just digging holes and filling them in the next day and the definition of “job” could be as flexible as the communities need it to be.