basically a negative income tax for the working poor in the US
That would increase incentive to work for the poor, but decrease the incentive to work hard enough to stop being considered poor. They can't have the income tax be negative for everyone.
The idea is that you're taxed on the UBI, as well, so your tax rate remains flat (or flatter than the current system) regardless of your income.
The big divergence is with the way welfare works now, when, depending on state, every dollar you can make, on average, costs you $1.50 in benefits, up to ~$70,000 for a single mother. That is, working makes you actively worse off. (Google "Welfare Cliff" for more information on this phenomenon, if you're interested.)
One of the big things which happened during Clinton's administration was a systematic ad...
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