Read about basic income on the Basic Income Earth Network website.
Apparently it’s become a fashionable topic, even a movement, motivated by concerns about rampant unemployment in developed economies, especially in Europe. I suppose the unemployment in question is driven in part by globalization of labor markets, volatility of the global financial system and credit markets, austerity policies, and jobs automation.
I’ve long thought of something like basic income as essential to the attainment of universal political freedom. Glad to find intellectual fashions sliding into line with my knucklehead musings.
Here’s Varoufakis making the case — contra free-market libertarian objections, among others — that “Freedom in action requires a basic income.”
Working Poor 
I see nothing wrong with the idea of a basic income. However, I think a flat tax system or a consumption tax would be better.
Better toward what end? One advantage of basic income is that it could support a baseline of universal socioeconomic freedom.
American Serf, better in this context refers to improving the people’s quality of life.
And how shall we characterize “quality of life” in this context?
Look up the definition on http://www.wikipedia.org for more information. If people got to keep more or all of their money, they could buy more things to increase their standard of living. Part of the problem is that people are not able to keep the fruits of their labor. Liberal democrats don’t seem to understand that by perpetuating class warfare, they are hurting the very people they claim to advocate for.
The wikipedia article on the subject advises that we not confuse “quality of life” with “standard of living”. The former is the conventional name for a concept of “well-being” in a broad, and by no means universally agreed upon, sense; while the latter has primarily to do with income and the availability of material goods. It sounds like you’re talking about standard of living, not quality of life? Or perhaps in your view there isn’t much of a difference?
In my opinion, they are interconnected to an extent.