The implementation of a basic income raises several questions: apart from the problems concerning the sustainability of the measure, it is controversial if basic income could be imposed as a complementary measure to those already in place. Among others, the topic that perhaps deserves further study concerns the relationship between the well-known distribution mechanisms on which modern welfare systems are based and the possibility of ensuring a minimum level of economic protection for people, even apart from the ability to generate income. So far, the advanced proposals do not seem to ensure either a real liberation from need or a sort of universality which, instead, seems to be the main feature of similar systems, experienced above all in the countries of northern Europe.