Universal Basic Income

During the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, candidate Andrew Yang’s policy of universal basic income was something many Americans had never heard of. Yang’s background as a tech entrepreneur likely influenced his platform, as he projected that within the next decade 1 of every 3 workers would be at risk of losing their jobs to new technologies. Basic income has been debated and piloted in countries around the world since the 1960s. Readers will evaluate whether a country that prides itself on the merits of hard work, automation, and a drastically evolving labor force could change that.