Yup, a negative income tax is a much better policy avenue to deal with this. It's much better to subsidize people doing things of varying degrees of productivity in an otherwise open employment market, than to discourage work entirely.

Work is how you learn and often have some kind of basic dignity and meaning, not to mention how you eventually move up to better positions.

This is essentially what the Earned Income Tax Credit is, and what should be expanded rather than something that would dis-incentivize working at all.