Andrew Yang (Twitter profile photo)
WASHINGTON – Most people haven’t heard of Andrew Yang yet. But they will soon enough.
Meet a dark-horse candidate for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2020, already officially declared, whose campaign is focusing on the concept of providing every man and woman between the ages of 18 and 64 in America with what is called a “Universal Basic Income” – free money, extracted from other taxpayers, with no strings attached.
While other groups and individuals are promoting the concept with pilot projects, like the one in Stockton, California, Yang, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, sees more urgency behind the scheme as automation, he says, will soon strip millions of Americans of jobs.
Yang has even come up with a new name for UBI – a $1,000 a month “Freedom Dividend.”
Yang officially declared his intention to run in a filing with the Federal Elections
