Hi @AOC, you probably won't see this because of the onslaught of notifications you receive, and even if you do I know your time is scarce, but please read or listen to this link before you say again that @AndrewYang's Freedom Dividend is a regressive UBI.
medium.com/basic-income/t…
medium.com/basic-income/t…
My focus for six years now has been UBI. I can tell you that what @AndrewYang is proposing is a massive improvement to our safety net. As proposed, it would reduce poverty among the entire population as much as Social Security reduced poverty among seniors. It would change lives. 
If someone won the lottery and started earning $1,000/mo right now, most would no longer qualify for any assistance. That is also true of a job guarantee and a $15 min wage. That does not mean these things are Trojan horses. They are simply lifting people above qualifying lines.
That is a result of the conditionality of targeted assistance. People can fall off of welfare cliffs with additional income. Yang's proposal gives people a choice instead of disqualifying them, and it also frees people from the burdens imposed by conditions. It gives back time.
Insisting that SNAP and TANF need to exist on top of UBI means that conditions must continue to apply, which removes the U from UBI. It would be like providing people Medicare for All, but deciding that work and job seeking requirements must continue to apply. Is that still M4A?
This isn't about destroying the safety net. It's about recognizing the inherent flaws within a safety net built on conditions, and fixing them by removing those conditions. We can't remove conditions by insisting conditions exist on top of unconditionality. What we need is trust.
UBI is not about just increasing people's incomes. The most important part of UBI is its unconditionality. It's about freeing people from impositions and constraints. It's about the return of time, dignity, and agency. There is simply no better UBI being proposed than Yang's UBI.
I feel progressives tend to get stuck on incomes instead of what's required to obtain those incomes. Is someone better off with $1200/mo that requires 30 hours a week of pointless job searching in an office 10 miles away than they are with $1k/mo without any conditions? Ask them.
Finally, just to be clear, Social Security is a program that would exist on top of Yang's Freedom Dividend as proposed. This would be a huge boost to seniors and those with disabilities on SSDI. Housing assistance would also exist on top of the dividend. It is hugely progressive.
