What the spread of universal basic-income schemes says about America’s safety net

There were no giant cheques, but the people who filed into a conference room at the Cook County building in downtown Chicago to fill in forms on a snowy morning late last year had nonetheless won the lottery. On December 15th, 3,250 people were paid $500, either on special debit cards or by direct deposit into their bank accounts. They were picked randomly from over 230,000 applicants by GiveDirectly, a charity that has been brought onto administer the county’s universal basic-income scheme.