Proponents of UBI today, who put it forth as a salve for the wounds cut by automation, frame the conversation as "Those poor sops who are at the bottom of the skills laddder! Let's be charitable and give them a hand." This ignores how dependent the future of work will be on contract on-demand labor. Our response to the call for UBI is the economic case for companies and consumers to share in underwriting a retainer for anyone contributing to on-demand economies. Retainers, like those paid to lawyers and other professionals, acknowledge the collective need to have a healthy, available, continuously updating workforce to make on-demand economies sustainable. These new portable benefits would come from all adults of working age, government funds currently spent on adminstering public benefits, and corporate taxes collected and poured back into a commons pool to cover the social security benefits for retirement, retraining, and paid leave and health costs for each worker. This workforce will require - and deserves - a differenset of benefits and safety nets. THe labor of hardworking people around hte worl dhsould not be rendered invisible or opaque by the rise of AI. Other industries have already taught business the value of shoring up the more sustainble albor practices of thier supply chians.