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Agreed

And it did help improve well-being! I'd say it's a success

You don't need a well paying job to afford rent and food - just don't live in ridiculously expensive areas. USA has a plenty of very cheap places to live. As the rest of the world, with maybe a few exceptions of very expensive micronations.

Indeed this Bloomberg reporter entirely misses the point! The point of UBI is to free people from BS Jobs and instead help people find meaning in life beyond their "unemployment". It should encourage creative risk-taking with a guaranteed safety-net income. If people are cash-poor they cannot think beyond the stress of paying bills and are forced to take a "wage-slave" JOB (Just Over Broke).

In the vast majority of capitalist societies, you don’t need a “well paying job” to eat. There are all manners of safety nets. Even in the USA no-one has starved to death in modern times.