There are plenty of countries that have very liberal welfare payments. They're extremely easy to get and anyone that wants to can live on them for years and years without ever having a job.
You could look at those examples to see how society will be impacted...
Australia is a good place to start your research.
(It's not quite UBI because you have to apply for it and do something to get it, but it's pretty close)
Anecdotally, from family members in the medical industry who work with low income patients, people on welfare (who could otherwise work) don't seem to have very fulfilling lives. I think it's pretty clear that people need something to work for or towards in order to find some sort of meaning in their life.
It's definitely a relevant point. If a large group of people who are not working seem to be predominantly unhappy, that's legitimate information that may be useful for discussion about universal basic income. You can make a compelling argument that the reason for that unhappiness is not innate to a lack of work, but rather due to the particular idiosyncrasies of the implementation of welfare, but that's not obviously true a priori.
The commenter seems to have made this observation in good faith. It seems rude to me that you would insinuate the point is irrelevant and "almost seems trollish" just because you disagree with it, particularly when you did the bare minimum to mount a substantive rebuttal. It's true that we shouldn't conflate the unhappiness associated with welfare with some sort of ennui induced by a lack of productivity; but that doesn't preclude the point you're disagreeing with, which could still be true.
Anecdotally, from poor people, people would rather be physically healthy and have a place to live, even if they are unfulfilled, than be malnourished or suffer from untreated chronic illness and likely be unfulfilled anyway.
That's why instead of UBI I think we should make the government an employer of last resort for anyone who has exhausted their unemployment benefits and can't find a regular job. We essentially did that during the Great Depression through the WPA and other agencies. It functioned pretty well. There's no reason we couldn't do it again.
UBI seeks to avoid a permanent underclass by enhancing labor force mobility.
A long term policy of government as a mandatory employer of last resort with make-work jobs doing work for which there is no real demand is a route to creating a permanent underclass. (A short-term policy of government as mandatory employer of last resort in response to an unusual economic disruption where this serves to maintain skills in jobs for which market demand is expected to rebound, to provide bridging income support, and to leverage temporary labor surplus for public infrastructure is a different story. As is a permanent policy of government offering non-universal last-resort employment in regions or industries experiencing short-term downturn without an economy-wide collapse, though that obviously can't replace general universal safety-net programs.)
A UBI would certainly create a permanent underclass of unemployable people. Make-work jobs are better than no jobs at all because they effectively act as training. Some people need training in basic job skills like showing up on time and properly dressed for work, and following a supervisor's directions without mouthing off. And there are actually many simple jobs that would add value to our communities and will never be automated in our lifetime. Things like painting over graffiti or maintaining trails in public parks. It's a lot better to do that then pay people to sit around and stagnate.
I agree. Taxpayers should see a return for their welfare investment. The problem is, like in prisons, we now view manual labor as a cruel and unusual punishment yet this is the type of work we need the most in the US (rebuilding infrastructure)
I'm not sure if the stigma will go away, but a lot of the reason not to embrace the welfare lifestyle is the stigma associated with it. With UBI everyone is getting it, so if you use it to live off of without working... good for you. I'm still getting mine, too. With the cumbersome traditional means tested welfare programs you get handouts and I am over here working my butt off paying for them. In its nature it makes welfare systems hostile to the working class if they cannot benefit from them.
You could look at those examples to see how society will be impacted...
Australia is a good place to start your research.
(It's not quite UBI because you have to apply for it and do something to get it, but it's pretty close)