(CNBC) – Amid the COVID-19 pandemic Pope Francis says it might be time for some sort of universal basic income. “This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage” to “acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks” and to  “achieve the ideal … of no worker without rights,” Pope Francis said in a letter to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, an organization representing global grassroots organizations, published on Sunday via the Vatican.

The Pope acknowledged that for many workers, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns are making it difficult, if not impossible, for people to earn money. “Many of you live from day to day, without any type of legal guarantee to protect you,” Pope Francis says in the letter.


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“Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time … and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable.”

“The ills that afflict everyone hit you twice as hard,” Pope Francis said to global laborers.  Talk of a universal basic income (UBI), or regular cash payments with minimal or no requirements for receiving the money, has been brought to the forefront as social distancing and economic concerns have put millions of people out of work.

In the U.S. alone 6.6 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment claims for the week ending April 4, the Labor Department reported Thursday. And according to the government’s monthly jobs report, the U.S. lost 10% of its workforce in three weeks. READ MORE