Objective: to form a holistic view of the unconditional basic income as a tool of social protection, taking into account the changes in the labor sphere and allowing to solve a number of growing problems associated with the consequences of the economy digitalization, as well as to assess the prospects of creating legal regulation on this issue. Methods: the study was conducted using both general and specific scientific methods, including analysis and synthesis, formal-legal method, systemic and comparative approaches, methods of legal forecasting and legal modeling. Results: unconditional basic income can become one of the elements of a new model of social security based on the unstable nature of labor relations, which begins to prevail over the model of sustainable employment traditional for industrial society. If established, this institution will be cross-sectoral within the labor law and social security law, providing social protection simultaneously to all members of society, most of whom in the near future will face an increased risk of being absorbed by technological unemployment. Unconditional basic income as an element of the social protection system will have to comply with the principle of the universal nature of protection based on social solidarity, on the one hand, and to take into account the need to balance the interests of the parties, on the other hand. As experimental models of basic income, which can be put into practice in the coming years, we can name the model of basic income as a measure of social support for persons involved in atypical forms of employment. This model will affect a number of existing provisions of labor legislation and will allow over time, in case of technological unemployment, to expand the circle of unconditional basic income recipients to all people. Scientific novelty: it consists in the fact that the unconditional basic income is analyzed from the viewpoint of its compliance with the fundamental principles of labor, employment, and social security. Practical significance: it consists in revealing the significance of basic income for the implementation of social policy and in forming recommendations for modeling experiments to introduce the unconditional basic income in the Russian Federation.