Means-testing is a wash on average, though: you keep the taxes of higher-income people lower, but then don't give them the cash payment. This works out better for very wealthy people (since tax rates are typically percentage-based, while the payout is a fixed number), but worse for lower-middle-class people, who get means-tested out of the payout but don't make enough to get much tax savings. There's some cross-over point where it's exactly a wash. Under the basic income system the idea is not to means-test it, because means-testing disincentivizes working (you lose your benefit once you make "too much" in other income), and instead just net it out with tax rates above a certain level. So at the crossover point you get a $10k BI but you pay $10k more taxes; below that you come out ahead, and above that you're behind. The current welfare system has the same general properties, but is much more bureaucratic and has more of a "cliff" where you lose the benefit, instead of it just slowly being eaten away by marginal tax rates.