Social security doesn't seem to work too badly (although the $500 listed in the article implies that the lady featured didn't put together a full career of anything). It's certainly more sustainable than Medicare (US old-age health system for you furriners).

You could argue that a guaranteed income program consists purely of increasing the subsidies for SS and taking money from 'the rich', but that'll require more political will than exists.

An interesting situation that I see a lot of is folks who spent an entire worklife doing largely cash work (construction, waitresses, bartenders, business owners who never took a reported salary) who find themselves getting older with little money on the horizon. This is probably 50% of the people I know.