If you'd like to see what people actually would do with money provided by a basic income program, here are the results of a survery conducted by GiveDirectly, a

If you'd like to see what people actually would do with money provided by a basic income program, here are the results of a survery conducted by GiveDirectly, a company piloting the idea in Kenya. It seems that despite your conjecture, there are a number of people investing the income into education, fishing nets, seeds for crops/livestock, fishing nets, beauty salon's, etc. In my experience, poor people are the world's greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.