Comment by David Autor

Although I do not at all like the idea of universal basic income because I don't think it solves many problems, and I think it creates others, I do like the idea of what some people call universal basic wealth where people are granted the endowment of capital at birth, like ownership of stuff. [...] If labor becomes less valuable, but capital becomes more valuable, you're hedged. And then additionally over the longer run, it broadly distributes the ownership of capital. Unverified source (2026)