Means Testing solves better than universal programs because targeting avoids tradeoffs – empirical studies prove.

Trade-off costs are also problematic for a UBI because universal basic income (by nature of being universal) cannot target cash disbursements to those who need them most. Targeting mechanisms are important as they enable governments to provide greater financial relief to those who desperately need it. A UBI, on the other hand, provides lessened financial relief to a mixed pool of individuals who may or may not need it. Benjamin Olken and Rema Hanna, professors at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied the positive effects of targeted cash transfers versus universal ones. Their paper, published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, explains that “existing targeting methods in developing countries, while imperfect, appear to deliver substantial improvements in welfare compared to universal programs, because they can transfer much more on a per-beneficiary basis to the poor as compared with universal programs.”9