What then? In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, which some have attributed to this very tension, questions about how to support the so-called working class have only grown. If robots and offshoring take all the jobs, or at the very least displace the low-skilled ones, the thinking goes, there may come a time when there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. Lately, however, tech leaders, including Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Y Combinator president Sam Altman, have begun pushing the concept as a potential solution to the economic anxiety brought on by automation and globalization-anxiety the tech industry has played its own role in creating.
The idea is not exactly new-Thomas Paine proposed a form of basic income back in 1797-but in this country, aside from Social Security and Medicare, most government payouts are based on individual need rather than simply citizenship.
