Is universal basic income the answer to automation?

When self-driving trucks eliminate 3.5 million trucking jobs, when AI replaces millions of white-collar workers, telling people to 'learn to code' isn't a policy - it's a punchline. UBI provides a floor of dignity while people transition. Alaska's Permanent Fund has been doing this since 1982 with bipartisan support. It works. It reduces poverty. And it actually stimulates local economies because people spend money on essentials.

Alaska's dividend is about $1,600 a year. Meaningful UBI would cost $3-4 trillion annually - more than the entire federal budget. And the fundamental problem isn't money, it's meaning. Work gives people purpose, community, and identity. A UBI check doesn't replace that. Instead of paying people not to work, we should be investing in education, apprenticeships, and creating the conditions for new industries to emerge. That's how every previous technological revolution played out.

Every previous technological revolution also involved massive suffering during the transition - child labor, 16-hour workdays, the Great Depression. Maybe this time we could skip the 'decades of widespread misery' phase? And the cost argument falls apart when you consider that UBI replaces dozens of existing welfare programs and their bureaucracies. Yang's proposal was $2.8 trillion funded by a VAT on automation - essentially making robots pay their fair share.

Making robots pay their fair share - that's catchy, but a VAT is the most regressive tax there is. It hits the poor hardest on every purchase they make. And 'replacing existing welfare programs' means taking targeted benefits from the most vulnerable and spreading them thin across everyone, including people who don't need help. A millionaire gets the same check as a single mom. How is that progressive? The real solution is expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and investing in communities, not mailing checks.