Universal Basic Income: Two Contrasting Views on Free Money

In this video, Facebook’s co-founder and a conservative scholar weigh in on what UBI would mean for the U.S.

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Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes explains why he’s made it his mission to advocate for universal basic income -- where governments provide citizens with enough money for life’s basic needs. And conservative anti-poverty scholar Oren Cass weighs in on what he sees as the risks of the idea.

There is growing debate over the idea that governments should provide citizens with a safety net to cover life’s necessities. While still largely a non-starter in the U.S., universal basic income (UBI) -- or guaranteed money from the government -- has the backing of several tech-world luminaries, including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson. They see work opportunities drying up as potentially tens of millions of jobs are replaced by automation.

Chris Hughes, cofounder of Facebook , is one of the tech titans devoting his time to advocate for UBI. “I think that something fundamentally in the economy has changed to create these winner take all markets, where a small number of hardworking people do very well and nine out of 10 of others who are also hardworking don’t enjoy the same opportunities,” he says.

Watch a video about Canada’s experiment with universal basic income.

In spite of the tech world’s embrace, others see the concept of basic income as running counter to American ideals. Oren Cass, a conservative anti-poverty scholar who writes for the National Review, says it could lead to people viewing work as optional. “We’re not going to build a system that is essentially equivalent to work, that essentially can just replace what it means to earn a paycheck.”

In the video above, Hughes and Cass weigh in on the pros and cons of a UBI in the U.S.

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