system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 How is basic universal income different than unconditional welfare?

At the end of the day, wouldn't basic income still just be the government giving away free money?
gpt
They are similar concepts designed to solve similar problems, but there are subtle differences. 

Basically, welfare only goes to the needy. You generally have to apply for it. Basic universal income goes to everybody, rich and poor, whether or not you've applied for it. 

This impacts ideal tax policy at the lower income levels while creating certain buts of bureaucracy and eliminating others. It also means the amount given to citizens goes up, so a corresponding tax has to be raised or deficits have to be incurred. Since taxation is almost always expressed as percentages and the basic income is expressed as a defined amount, this would mean that tax burden is shifted up from the lower middle-class to the upper-middle class, flattening their post-tax earnings somewhat.

The big theoretical benefit, however, is that it would eliminate some of the worst aspects welfare. Welfare incentivizes people to work under the table (pay no taxes and usually work bad jobs), disincentives them to find a permanent job or part-time job (they can lose welfare benefits and have to work a lot more to earn only a little more), and makes them feel like terrible people when they have to wait in line and beg a bureaucrat for money to survive. A basic income has none of these problems, but it comes at a higher cost to the budget.