You lessen social problems by providing people with hope, confidence, and security, so that they do not need to prey on others in order to survive, nor turn to chemicals to cope with the stress, worry and fear about whether or how they can survive. When people are living in desperation and constant survival mode, they are forced to make choices that people with secure lives would not likely make because they have that luxury and are able to see things from a long term perspective. The most obvious examples of this are poor people being more likely to smoke and have more children than people with more money and security in their life. Poor people have few other pleasures and easy ways to relieve stress, so they smoke. They have little perspective beyond the short term, so having kids seems natural and not something that would be a liability or long term cost to them. Besides, sex is also one of the few low cost pleasures in life. I am not being classist here, because if I was poor I would likely not be any different. Research studies have even simulated the effect of poverty on decision-making, so I am not just making judgements.

As Michael Moore said long ago, if you live in a place where everybody is able to have a lower middle class income (40K back then), you are much less likely to see somebody ripping off their neighbor's home to get their TV, cash, jewelry, etc. Would that end all crime? Of course not, because there will always be greedy people, which we already have plenty of in the top income groups, but we will have a hell of a lot less street crime. Most people have a desire to work because it gives them a feeling of pride and purpose. A small minority don't, but the cost of providing for all would be worth it, at least to me, if the costs were progressively taxed. But right now our tax system is anything but progressive...that's a whole other discussion.