[dragonwriter]

> Many who speak for basic income (including this article's author) argue that it's the heavy bureaucracy and stigma associated with such sollutions that cause people to be caught up in it.

"Heavy bureaucracy" is a source of social cost, but neither it nor stigma are, as I see it, the real problem with means tested programs.

The real problem with means-tested programs is the perverse incentives of means-testing, which directly serve to inhibit people from progressing up the economic ladder by creating penalties for outside income (when, as is often the case, the programs have inadequate benefits to start with, this often forces people into under-the-table work just to survive, which has negative cultural effects as it erodes cultural acceptance of the rule of law.)