The article argues that if AI makes work optional for firms, the state must reconsider what it owes workers. It urges study of Universal Basic Employment (UBE): a legally enforceable standing job offer at a set wage and benefits for anyone willing to work.

Drawing on New Deal relief, public service employment and modern subsidized-job trials, it finds higher incomes and social benefits but uncertain net employment due to crowd-out and fiscal substitution. Because UBE is a wage floor, a high wage could pull workers from low-wage private jobs and raise prices; take-up and costs hinge on financing and wage setting. In an AI economy, the key question is whether public jobs absorb labor private firms no longer demand. The article concludes UBE is neither a cure-all nor impossible and deserves rigorous modeling and large-scale tests alongside UBI and dividends.