Is America Ready for Universal Basic Income?

Universal basic income (or UBI) is a key part of Andrew Yang's campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. On Monday, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted his support for Yang's candidacy. Musk and Yang have stated similar views on the need for universal basic income in the United States.

A main tenet of Yang's campaign platform is his pledge to provide $1,000 a month to all American citizens 18 and older. Yang refers to this payment as a "Freedom Dividend" that will become necessary as robots and automation replace humans more rapidly than people can find and be retained for new jobs.

UBI is making its way from the fringes to a serious topic of debate thanks to a growing number of high profile advocates, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. So far, the results of some UBI experiments have been controversial. Is America ready for universal basic income?