Andrew Yang’s revived pitch suits the automation debate, but UBI can’t fix inequalities concentrated tech wealth drives

Universal basic income (UBI) is back, like a space zombie in a sci-fi movie, resurrected from policy oblivion, hungry for policymakers’ attention: brains!

Andrew Yang, whose “Yang Gang” enthusiasm briefly shook up the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 promoting a “Freedom Dividend” to save workers from automation – $1,000 a month for every American adult – is again the main carrier of the bug: offering UBI to save the nation when robots eat all our jobs.