Means tested welfare works like this: You get $12,000 in stuff, then if you make $20,000 in income they take it all back, so you're effectively paying a ~70% marginal tax rate on your first $20,000 in income (including the ~10% you pay in actual income tax). Everybody, even if you make $90,000/year.
With a UBI, you have an ordinary tax system that isn't secretly putting higher marginal rates on lower income levels, so then e.g. everybody pays a 30% flat marginal rate. But if you're in the middle your effective rate is lower, because the UBI phases out slower -- you only paid 30% on your first $20,000 in income rather than 70%.
You were paying net taxes to fund welfare already, but now you're not paying as much and someone who makes more money than you is paying more.
Moreover, what people receive is cash rather than stupid garbage like housing projects that turn into slums (but that you still had to pay for), which makes what they receive more efficient (they can buy what they need instead of what the central planning committee thinks -- and you don't have to pay the salaries of the central planning committee or the means testing bureaucracy), which means it costs the taxpayer less for the same level of assistance.
It's a much less dramatic change than people seem to think it is, and creates a greater incentive for lower income people to work because people get to keep 70% of the marginal dollar instead of 30%.
With a UBI, you have an ordinary tax system that isn't secretly putting higher marginal rates on lower income levels, so then e.g. everybody pays a 30% flat marginal rate. But if you're in the middle your effective rate is lower, because the UBI phases out slower -- you only paid 30% on your first $20,000 in income rather than 70%.
You were paying net taxes to fund welfare already, but now you're not paying as much and someone who makes more money than you is paying more.
Moreover, what people receive is cash rather than stupid garbage like housing projects that turn into slums (but that you still had to pay for), which makes what they receive more efficient (they can buy what they need instead of what the central planning committee thinks -- and you don't have to pay the salaries of the central planning committee or the means testing bureaucracy), which means it costs the taxpayer less for the same level of assistance.
It's a much less dramatic change than people seem to think it is, and creates a greater incentive for lower income people to work because people get to keep 70% of the marginal dollar instead of 30%.