I'm comfortable with the US's current definition of poverty, though I agree with the critics who say it should be higher.

UBI is different because the money goes directly to the people rather than to a bureaucracy. While some tests of UBI could be called inconclusive, none are discouraging.

Are there proportionally more poor people in the US today than there were in the 1930s? If so—and even if we're not there yet—the reason is neoliberalism. The wealth gap was narrowing under Keynesian liberalism.