Section 8 vouchers are a means-tested benefit program where the net benefit decreases with outside income, and, as such, create a disincentive (especially since people qualified for them also, nearly invariably, are on
other means-tested benefit programs whose benefits
also decline with additional income -- sometimes, in aggregate, leading to a
greater than 1:1 decline in benefits compared to increased income) to productive activity.
This is precisely one of the problems with means-tested benefit programs, especially with an uncoordinated collection of such programs, that UBI, with its unconditional nature, is designed to solve. I don't see how that description of the effect of Section 8 vouchers (even if it is assumed to be both accurate, and generalizable) illustrates that UBI is a "retarded ivory tower idea".
This is precisely one of the problems with means-tested benefit programs, especially with an uncoordinated collection of such programs, that UBI, with its unconditional nature, is designed to solve. I don't see how that description of the effect of Section 8 vouchers (even if it is assumed to be both accurate, and generalizable) illustrates that UBI is a "retarded ivory tower idea".