The purpose of an economy is to allocate resources and ensure maximum employment doing useful things.
If UBI helps people do useful things like caregiving or job training, then it has achieved something.
If UBI just causes less (useful) work to get done, then it is a net harm to society.
Maybe it's good if it shifts investment towards automation that eventually improves productivity. For example, if paying Uber drivers becomes less attractive, maybe researching self-driving or investing in mass transit becomes more attractive; maybe that's good.
But things still need to get done, and money by itself doesn't do anything. In the extreme case you end up like Kuwait, where citizens get (in that case oil) UBI, and guest workers outside the UBI system do all the actual work.
The US could do that, and it might reduce inequality among US citizens, but new outgroups would become painfully apparent.
If UBI helps people do useful things like caregiving or job training, then it has achieved something.
If UBI just causes less (useful) work to get done, then it is a net harm to society.
Maybe it's good if it shifts investment towards automation that eventually improves productivity. For example, if paying Uber drivers becomes less attractive, maybe researching self-driving or investing in mass transit becomes more attractive; maybe that's good.
But things still need to get done, and money by itself doesn't do anything. In the extreme case you end up like Kuwait, where citizens get (in that case oil) UBI, and guest workers outside the UBI system do all the actual work.
The US could do that, and it might reduce inequality among US citizens, but new outgroups would become painfully apparent.