You have your motivation and empathy in the right place, but your econ, not so much. You can never win an argument when forced to frame it in the language of the opposition. It's like mud wrestling a pig.
When the government steps in to help the poor manage a slightly better life, those advocates for capitalism exclaim they don’t want their tax dollars being used that way.
One of the greatest defeatist things progressives do consistently is give into the concept of "taxpayer money" and set themselves up for failure before they start. The federal government is the monopoly "source" of "ALL" US dollars and it has an infinite supply of them that are "self funding" and is not revenue restrained.
Taxation and borrowing are "NOT" funding mechanisms for federal spending. This has always been true, but the leftover mindset of the gold standard (encouraged by the oligarchs and their political and economist henchmen) has muddled the reality to the point where America would reject a utopian society out of irrational fear of inflation, mostly because they relate the government's budget process with their own.
They have to "get" money to spend and they can't get their head around the reality of a sovereign fiat currency issuer that can afford anything that exists and is for sale denominated in the issuer's currency. Anytime a progressive policy (usually something other countries take for granted) is proposed all one has to do to kill it is ask "How will you pay for it?".
The immediate reaction of all progressive politicians is their fallback for funding, taxing the wealthy and their businesses. This elicits massive resistance from the best funded and organized opposition on the planet. The oligarchs fund major media outlets and purchase politicians outright to avoid any additional tax liability by positioning themselves as "job creators". The people with the most money best understand money, and they know they can only win if you don't understand it.
Given that most people work and get paychecks from them, that opposition also gains considerable support from the working class itself. This support comes not only from the people's fear of losing jobs, but from the propaganda surrounding welfare that allows them to transfer their fear to "others", (especially brown others). Anything, even as seemingly small as wearing a mask in a pandemic, will be used to divide and conquer us.
There are any number of ways to pay for it, but to illustrate that it’s possible, here’s one way.
The way to "pay for" anything at the federal level is to just "pay for it" with votes in Congress. The dollars are the easy part as they are just keystrokes between bank computers marking up federal reserve accounts. Your idea is doomed for failure, even if it doesn't need to be paid for however. It is just a new take on the universal basic income/tax credit that Milton Freidman loved.
It simply shovels federal money to rent seekers and employers using the people as unwitting conduits. It would stagnate wages and would quickly be eaten by inflation pressure that would put everyone back at square one, but without a safety net backstop. Here's your $1000 monthly UBI payment. Now go buy rent, insurance, food, and all other necessities with it and don't think about asking for higher wages when you find out it won't even cover rent.
Employers, such as WalMart, love federal support of the working poor. It means they can get by with paying less as long as the people can be convinced that the workers are poor from their own failures and not the system. They would be practically orgasmic over a UBI that would pay such a major portion of the wages they now pay.
