And I didn't say these statistics say anything about prosperity or happiness, but look higher in the thread: France has all sorts of UBI-like social benefits, and it doesn't bring happiness nor prosperity (that's what I wrote).
It seems to me that if you want to talk about happiness or prosperity, you have to compare it to other ways of organizing society (other countries), in other case, it's meaningless.
Actually France is the "other way of organizing society" (having something that looks a lot like Basic Income, see higher in the thread), and most other countries are "the baseline"... In this context, we observe no clear benefits (high unemployment, almost no growth).
Last time I checked (2 years ago), they were spending 12000€ annually for each and every homeless in France, which is great... Except they are still homeless, when this amount is similar to minimum wage (enough to NOT be homeless, and that's without social benefits). This money was basically wasted and didn't fix any problem.
So the point of heavy social programs is: people aren't happier, and in the end feel entitled to benefits... even when it downs the economy and employment.
For instance, I could say:
" In 2013, child poverty reached record high levels in the U.S., with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households. Many of the neighborhoods these children live in lack basic produce and nutritious food. 47 million Americans depend on food banks, more than 30% above 2007 levels." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States)
That doesn't sounds like prosperity or happiness..