I’m beginning to think a low Basic Income might help, maybe as little as a hundred bucks a month. The problem with current BI tests is they are Big Bang experiments - big basic incomes for a tiny number of people. However a relatively low BI combined with moderate minimum wages could effectively act as a subsidy on low paying jobs. It would have to be funded by a tax increase, but a relatively modest one. This should make more low paying jobs viable to offer, make them more economically attractive to workers in terms of total earnings, and make the businesses that employ people on low wages more price competitive, increasing low wage employment. All without the massive distortions to the economy a high BI could cause.
This approach to BI wouldn’t free everybody up to become artists and explorers, but that was always a fantasy anyway. Somebody has to do the productive work somewhere, the trick is to make that work progressively more secure and rewarding.
Anyway, the entire US military budget coms to about $2350 per adult American. Emptying half of the prisons would about double that (taking into account the productivity of released prisoners, the above includes full economic costs of incarceration). Only about $40,000 each left to find the funds for.