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  • If enough Americans come together, raise our hands, and say yes we want

  • then we can make it happen in 2021 and will be the first thing I do

  • as president. Hello, I'm Andrew Yang and I'm running for president to implement

  • universal basic income in response to this incredible transition we're going

  • through

  • Universal basic income is a policy where every citizen gets a certain amount of

  • money every month regardless of their work status or anything else going in

  • their lives. Under my plan, every American adult between 18 and 64 will receive

  • free and clear, no questions asked. Doesn't matter if you're

  • working, not what your income is. One thousand dollars

  • We're going through the greatest technological and economic shift in our

  • history and we need to accelerate our society and government to keep pace with

  • the challenges of 2020. We've already automated away millions of

  • manufacturing jobs and we're about to do the same thing to workers in retail,

  • truck driving, call centers, fast food restaurants, and on and on throughout the

  • economy so this plan the $1,000 per month plan was studied by the Roosevelt

  • Institute which projected that it would grow the economy by two and a half

  • trillion dollars per year and would create four and a half million new jobs.

  • $12,000 a year is enough to push an American up to just about the poverty

  • line which is a little bit more than $12,000 per year. So there's like all

  • of the the big 'Oh it's going to grow the economy. It's going to create millions of

  • jobs. It's going to create all of these new businesses' which it totally will. But

  • I'm more excited about the fact that's going to help the single mother pay for

  • their children's food and education. It's going to help children grow up to become

  • more conscientious and agreeable and graduate from high school at higher

  • levels. It's going to help balance the scales for women who do so much work

  • that right now is not compensated; for underrepresented minorities who don't

  • have access to the same opportunities and have less savings. The way the

  • freedom dividend, which is what I call universal basic income. The way the

  • freedom dividend is funded is through a new tax that will fall on the companies

  • that are benefiting most from automation. So we need to shift to a value-added tax

  • that would fall on companies like Amazon and the robot trucking companies where

  • value-added tax every other industrialized country in the world

  • except for the US has a value-added tax and through a value-added tax at half

  • the European level, we could pay for a universal basic income of $1,000 per

  • month for all Americans. A universal basic income will be the greatest

  • catalyst to entrepreneurship, and creativity, and the arts that we have

  • ever seen because when Americans have their heads up and can think about the

  • future, they'll be thinking about the businesses they want

  • to start, the organizations they want to create, and really what they want to see

  • in the world. So right now many many Americans have a mindset of scarcity

  • which is that we don't have enough; there's not enough to go around; we can't

  • afford it. But the truth is we are the richest and most advanced society in the

  • history of the world. Our economy is up to $19 trillion in size, up four

  • trillion in the last ten years alone. We can easily afford $1,000 per

  • adult, per month. This is the great equalizer of our time. Economic justice

  • is social justice. There is no social justice without leveling the playing

  • field in terms of how much money we get as Americans to be able to pay for our

  • basic needs.

If enough Americans come together, raise our hands, and say yes we want

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