The idea of a fixed income replacing welfare has been around a long while (I posited it in my role-playing setting -- ForeScene: The Flawed Utopia back in 1986

The idea of a fixed income replacing welfare has been around a long while (I posited it in my role-playing setting -- ForeScene: The Flawed Utopia back in 1986 after reading somewhere that it would be cheaper to simply pay everyone a salary than run the welfare system). Today, I think it only really makes sense if there are controls on reproduction and immigration (my setting had controls on both).