The reason that economists like basic income is that each recipient is free to decide how to apply that income to best advance their lot in life. Any other brea

The reason that economists like basic income is that each recipient is free to decide how to apply that income to best advance their lot in life. Any other breakdown, and you get more overhead of policy and administration because you are determining for a population some some mix of programs. The risk that you fall into some policy gap, just as in the article, is increased at that point; and the government is then paying both the benefit, and for a higher administration cost to qualify people and distribute the benefit.