A UBI helps African Americans who are disproportionately affected by unemployment.

I come to basic income from a very different political tradition: black politics with a focus on race and political economy. It is this tradition that led both Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Panther Party to argue for full employment and a “guaranteed income” fifty years ago. Though they wanted these specifically for African Americans, they hoped they would be made available to all Americans. Five decades later it is about time the rest of us caught up to their vision. Black workers today face the exact same dual crisis of high unemployment and low-wage work that they did fifty years ago. The black unemployment rate is twice that of white workers at nearly every level of education. Thus one need not be only concerned with future trends to speculate that a basic income would help black Americans today, especially those who continue to be locked out of access to labor markets.