I've had long-term unemployment as well (over 18 months) and I think that is an entirely different phenomenon that's not connected to what people would do if th

I've had long-term unemployment as well (over 18 months) and I think that is an entirely different phenomenon that's not connected to what people would do if they had some financial security of a basic income. Long term unemployment creates a type of inaction/depression for some people (this happened to me, and it sounds exactly like what happened to your ex partner). Because so much of my identity was bound up in what job I had, what career goals, how much money, etc., it made the feeling of being unemployed severely distressing. I really wanted to do things like volunteering, or even basic self-care like exercising, but I could not due to the distress of unemployment and the feeling like I absolutely had to find an "acceptably good" job (for social status) and neurotically do nothing but dedicate all my efforts towards that. If the status of having a basic income is a positive thing, like framing it as an opportunity to pitch in with civic duty and give back, I think it would satisfy the status and "sense of accomplishment" requirements for a lot of people. But either way, the extremely distressing feeling of long-term unemployment is really not comparable. I would say, for example, that what you observed from your ex partner does not give you any capability of predicting what your ex partner would have done with basic income during that unemployment period. The situations are just too drastically different.