It’s probably safe to say that a few years ago, most Americans weren’t familiar with the term universal basic income, commonly abbreviated as UBI. But more recently, as the idea has grown in popularity among the tech community, and with Andrew Yang’s presidential run putting it into the political spotlight, the idea of everybody in the country receiving a monthly check just for existing has begun to capture the public’s imagination and has become a more normalized part of the political lexicon.

It’s important to note that there are multiple versions of universal basic income, from libertarian or right-wing iterations which see the UBI as a replacement for public benefits, to more progressive versions, such as those discussed in this article, which are intended as a supplement to already existing social safety net programs and which do not use means-testing (such as requiring employment) as a qualifying factor.

In fact, just in […]