Nearly half of Americans are in favor of giving cash handouts of $500-$2,000 a month to residents when robots take their jobs.

A survey of 500 individuals in the U.S. released today found that 46 percent of people support the idea of a universal basic income, through which the government gives a cash handout to any resident, irrespective of employment status.

"The general concept of a floor on income is generally acceptable to and popular with voters. This is a solid first step," writes Misha Chellam, the founder of startup-training company Tradecraft and a signatory of the Economic Security Project, a newly founded research organization dedicated to learning more about the implications of universal basic income (UBI). Chellam wrote a summary of the survey results for Medium.

While 500 people is not a perfect representation, there is a reasonable diversification in the ages of those surveyed: 24 percent were over 65, 31 percent were under 40, 16 percent were in their forties and 25 percent were between the ages of 50 and 64.

The survey was commissioned by half a dozen thought leaders including Jim Pugh, the co-founder of Universal Income Project; author Peter Barnes; Mark Gomez of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society; Natalie Foster, Institute for the Future; Misha Chellam and Russ Klusas, the founders of Tradecraft; Roy Bahat of Bloomberg Beta; and Chris Hughes, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

