However, if you do that, it is no longer "basic". Now you're back to needing administrators and supervisors to run the fake jobs, having to pay to set up said fake jobs, etc... What, are we going to have them grind in the latest MMO as the job?

Now, I've proposed having a "FedJob" program that does some of what you say - but I try to avoid the broken window fallacy by having them work on "infrastructure" instead. Basically, do work that will make the nation better in the long run. If the economy heats up and hires those people, then the projects can lay fallow instead until the next economic slump.

But the critical part here is that it would be actual wages for actual work.

A big part of the idea behind the UBI is that it does not penalize people for their working status - your proposal would penalize them if they already have a job, just not a well-paying one. If they're busy with a fake job, that means they can't be busy working a real job, looking for a real job, or training for a real job.

Same deal with the housing idea. Odds are it'll be located somewhere that makes getting real employment difficult.

We already have unemployment programs for covering things like the "5 years".

My thought is that with many forms of art being more or less infinitely replicable - anything digital like pictures, music, games, and such can be distributed nearly for free all around the world. Meanwhile, the system of very long copyrights means that anything produced commercially is locked up for longer than we're going to remain alive.
Artistry is a skill as well. I've seen saying that it can take 5k hours to master a new skill. With the "infinitely replicable" thing, it can end up being like some of the scifi stuff which had item duplication - we're even seeing some of it today, in that we're relying on a few experts and NOT training up replacements because there just isn't any work below the expert level.

A few years of supporting "starving artists" to keep them from starving could be the opportunity for them to get the necessary hours in to produce commercially viable work, or be able to release said works into the public domain.
Think Patreon vs Amazon books.

I think that depends on how you define "okay life". I tend to reach a lot lower than most people on that.
I still remember getting into a UBI debate with a person who thought that the UBI should pay extra so he could send his kids to a religious school. And not just any religious school, but an expensive one.
He couldn't seem to understand that:
1. UBI is supposed to be universal, not customized to individual people's "needs". Also "basic", IE not much over the minimum needs.
2. That said expensive religious school is a want, not a need. I proposed soliciting donations from other people in his religion if it is considered such a need. IE if the religion demands special schooling, then those in the religion can fund it.
3. My proposed UBI is generally around half that of most other proposals, makes funding it a lot easier.
In general, I'm like "don't want to have roommates, share an apartment to make ends meet? Get a job."

yeah, because I've never actually driven an ICE vehicle with start-stop, I ended up looking up ranges for system operating stuff. Apparently, the slowest systems out there are around a second to restart the engine. The fastest are a quarter second or less.
One thing people might not remember is that it is a lot easier to restart a warmed up engine than a cold one, taking drastically less time and energy.

How do you know it was the start-stop and not something that would have died no matter what at that time?

I think this is the critical part. Just because a system exists does not mean that all implementations of it are the same. Odds are some do a better job than others.
For example, Toyota hybrids with the eCVT system are, by experience and reports, far better than other hybrids (and ICE) with CVTs (the cone and chain thing, not the eCVT planetary gearset). Jeeps are notoriously shit.
I read about people concerned it will kill the starter motor faster - well, it's an electric motor. Specced properly, one should be able to run electric motors for decades without issue. Toyota rates their starters for 384k restarts. 21 starts a day for 50 years. Or 52 starts/day for 20 years.
Starters tend to fail because one of the electronic bits fail even though they tend design starters to only be able to operate for a few seconds before overheating.
For that matter, go 20 years back and one often had to crank the engine for a while. These days with push-button computer controlled starting, the starter works a lot less.

I get slightly better mileage when cruising with my hybrid because it has an engine that operates closer to the Atkinson cycle than the Otto. Crap low RPM torque, but the electric motors make up for that, and low RPM torque doesn't matter at highway speeds.
Though yes, I've also noticed that Trump seems to have had and still have a very large beef with anything done by Obama.
As for VW having it setup like an ICE vehicle - I think that it's most likely the first: Driving experience. They figured drivers were "stupid" and wanted to keep operation similar.
It's like with my car, a hybrid. Why do I have to turn the car fully on to raise the windows? It doesn't tell me a window is down until the car is shut off, but I have to fully restart it, including things like seatbelt alarm, just to raise the windows. It's not like turning the ignition on starts the engine to power the window motors.

The critical difference is that a hybrid can drive the car with the engine off, a start-stop system can only restart the engine before driving.
I also drive a hybrid. I think that the start-stop our hybrids are capable of is very different than the start-stop for an otherwise ICE vehicle, where all they've maybe done is put a bigger stronger starter motor in it. That means it takes up to a second to start driving with a start-stop system, which I can see as annoying.
Looking it up, the electric motors in my hybrid are capable of 71 hp - at a dead stop that's plenty to get the car going, pre-spin the engine, and get it started even while beating many ICE cars off the line. Meanwhile, somebody in a slower start-stop car might already be getting honked at.

I'm having a bit of a laugh at the idea of them trying to check emissions on an EV. That said, regulations between countries even with similar safety standards can have incompatible rules. The examples I remember is daytime running lights being required in the USA but illegal in at least one EU nation. Also, something about the shape of rear view mirrors. This was decades ago when I was stationed in Germany and looked into it. Ended up selling my car instead.
An EV legal for sale in Canada should be interesting though.

I know I proposed this back in the day as a way to hire assassinations on the sly.
Have a betting pool on somebody's death. Bets minus the vig go into the pool. Payouts go proportionally to how specific the bet matches. IE a bet for the week pays 1/7 over a specific day. Cause of death would take more figuring.
The more people bet on somebody's death, the more money. The actual killer could snipe most of the pool by being specific in their bet. Basically sports fixing.
If a person is popular, or unpopular, enough, enough bets to confuse the issue.

That's an interesting question. I'm not seeing an official answer coming up, but there's apparently 32k ZCTAs. Populations of the USA 338M, so approximately 10k people per ZCTA, I'd say.
Size of ZCTA in land area would vary dramatically, and even population. They're kind of based on postal zip codes, but changed to be more valid for statistical analysis.

"Improved but still bad" falls under "not so much anymore", I've said before that China is at best speedrunning development, it can't seem to skip steps like the "pollute everything" stage.

It's basically the "fast to build" thing with fuel also being cheap and available.

While there are some things the same, such as concrete, between coal, nuclear, wind, and even solar, they all require different manufacturing facilities. I remember reading somewhere that at least some of the coal plants China is building are designed to be easy to convert to nuclear if that comes up.

So until those manufacturing capabilities catch up with China's demand, coal will continue to be built. I also remember that at least in part, they're building more efficient coal plants to replace aging inefficient and highly polluting ones. So if a new coal plant gets a 50 year old one shut down, it's still a net positive.

Indeed. That's where I approach it. Our current system is so fragmented and inefficient that we still have homeless people because they can't get on the right programs, while people who are "good" at signing up and applying can be driving later model cars than what I own. There's programs that pay cash, food benefits (at least 3), help pay for housing, help pay for utility bills, pay for child care, and more.
I tend to keep healthcare separate, because it has a wide range, between $0 and $XXX depending on the health of the person. Can't really help that. Personally, I'd start combining Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Perhaps even Tricare, all the other government health programs. I try to not call it "insurance" because insurance isn't something you're supposed to be using on the regular, that doesn't have negotiated deals with everything, etc... In order to reduce expenses, in line with VA and military experience, let the new combined medicare agency not only negotiate drug prices, but operate their own health facilities. It's seriously cheaper in the long run. If we could get our costs down to around that of Europe, we could have "single payer" without spending a drop of private money OR increasing government spending.
Anyways, another big factor is what is generally called "the welfare cliff", basically, as one starts to earn money, they start clawing back the benefits. But because they're "needs based" and so fragmented, it is common for a person to LOSE income by making more money between taxes and the clawbacks.
By adjusting the tax system to be the clawback, by unifying most of the welfare programs into the UBI, one can ensure that people are always better off by working and earning money, assuming they aren't being crazy and commuting 2 hours each way by car for a part time minimum wage job. Plus, lose their job? UBI is still there.

Well, of course you can nitpick every plank, but keep in mind that it's a bare bones bullet list typed from memory, specifically looking at funding, not a position paper or even the book I could expand it into. Odds are I can address any given nitpick.
I agree on the budget thing, though right now we can borrow money below inflation, so setting up a fund is actually the correct economic decision, even if I personally would prefer seriously cutting the debt, and recognize that that would require sacrifice. No, I have zero confidence in our politicians doing it.
Back when I first proposed it, $500/month actually hit the poverty line for a family of 4 within a few dollars. I deliberately keep to whole numbers for the UBI because I'm keeping it to single digit accuracy. I'm not quite ready to bump the recommendation to $700, but would be willing to listen to arguments for it.
As you say, a single job, among 4 people, would get them to the poverty line.