For the past 100 years, the foundation of our society has been a social contract that ties success to hard work. And, for the most part, this contract has allowed our communities to prosper. We’ve anchored the American Dream on opportunity, assuring that with access to public education and a free market, that you can make it big if you just work hard enough.

But that opportunity is vanishing. We’re entering a new period, where the output and productivity of workers are no longer tracking with the number of jobs we have and the amount that those jobs are paying — what economists are now calling the Great Decoupling.

Younger workers are no longer seeing the same number of jobs or career-long wage gains that workers saw in the 70s, and median income is actually lower than in the past. The economy is growing, workers are becoming more productive, but the cost of college has skyrocketed, wages are stagnant, and jobs are continuing to become more scarce.

Because of a mixture of globalization, offshoring, and technological progress, we’re only going to see these trends accelerate. This gap in job opportunities is driving the income divide that we’re seeing today, and as more people continue to try to make a living juggling multiple part-time, contract jobs, the divide will only get more stark.

More and more people are being left out. We need a new social contract: a universal basic income. Basic income is a simple program, where the government provides enough cash to every American to provide for their basic needs. It’s a grant given to everyone, regardless of employment, unconditionally, with no restrictions on how it’s spent.

Basic income provides Americans with an income floor.

It is a chance for us all to benefit from the incredible strides in productivity and wealth we’ve made over the last 100 years. Instead basing work on scarcity, we can choose work based on what matters to us. Basic income gives us the chance to let us think about how we would best like to spend our time, in order to contribute to the world we live in.

Change is inevitable, but progress is not. We have a chance to think about a future where no one worries about their basic needs. It’s time we updated our social contract for the 21st century. It’s time for a basic income.