Chicago and Cook County are part of the movement for a guaranteed basic income.

Where do the candidates for Mayor stand?

My art is on Instagram @klonskyart.

Happy day after Thanksgiving.

The historian Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that the holiday emerged 1862 in northern states and from Abraham Lincoln as part of the war effort against slavery and the Confederacy.

The other day I posted on my Facebook page that Los Angeles has followed Chicago and Mayor Lightfoot’s lead in establishing fair work rules.

Someone commented that other cities had established established similar laws before Chicago and Mayor Lightfoot.

I think there intent was to diminish the accomplishment.

It’s true. Chicago was not the first. It is a movement and an important one for many low-paid workers who do not have the benefit of union contracts governing work schedules and hours.

Yet it didn’t happen before Mayor Lightfoot worked with the City Council to pass the ordinance less than a year after she was elected to replace Rahm Emanuel.

Under Lightfoot Chicago has also joined the movement to provide an annual basic income to those of our neighbors struggling in tough times to pay their bills.

5,000 Chicagoans have received $500 payments for each of the last four months as part of a one-year program known as the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot.

Cook County has a similar program. 3,250 applicants via a lottery will receive $500 a month for two years.

These programs are incredibly helpful to those who are receiving the payments. But the programs are necessarily limited in scope. In order for universal basic income programs to reach all those who need the help it requires an investment that only the federal government can provide.

But along with fair work rules, the basic income pilot has been among the hallmarks of a progressive Lightfoot administration.

Those lining up to run for mayor might want to say where they have been and what they would do to address these issues.