His odds for 2020 are long.

Still struggling to show up at 1% in the polls, he faces a steep uphill battle.

He is competing with a large field of experienced politicians.

That field is currently topped by Bernie Sanders—probably the most influential progressive in the country,

with decades of experience, and a powerful movement behind him.

And were he some how able to beat Sanders, to become President, Yang would still have

to topple Trump: an incumbent president running on a strong economy, and backed by an astoundingly

loyal following.

Facing all this, Andrew Yang has few assets in his arsenal.

He's not a career politician, or a famous billionaire.

He doesn't have the name-recognition, the donors, the staff, or the popular movement

required to become president—at least not yet.

What he does have is an idea.

One that is so interesting it's gotten far more attention than a fringe candidate is

likely to expect.

One that has gotten him enough support that he will likely make past the DNC threshold

to appear in the democratic primary debates.

Yeah, and I'm going to be on the debate stage in June and July

The DNC has already reached out to my team.

Andrew Yang hopes his idea will be enough to make him the next president of the United

States.

Can he do it?

(#YangGang starts cheering)

Andrew Yang's platform includes support for medicare for all and changing our measures

for determining the health of the economy.

We need to get healthcare off the backs of businesses and families

And move to a single payer system Medicare for all

We have a series of bad numbers YES!!!!

GDP is one

I'm going to update the numbers so that--

YESSS!

YESSS!!!!

SO WE CAN KNOW WHATS GOING ON!!!!

Otherwise we can't (voice cracks) make wise decisions

Yeah...

Our life expectancy has declined for the last three years for the first time in 100 years

because of a surge in self-bang-bang and oopsie doses

How can you say an economy is healthy, when our people are not living?

It makes no--

I LITERALLY COULDN'T--

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ON THE OTHER ISSUES...

(Yang doesn't like to hear that)

But the focus of his campaign is what he calls the Freedom Dividend.

It's his own spin on a Universal Basic Income.

The idea is simple: to give every American over the age of 18, regardless of income,

and without any kind of work requirement or other test, a thousand dollars per month.

Anyone can opt into the program.

The only exception being that those who are currently on welfare programs, food stamps

or disability would have to chose to lose their enrolment in those programs, or have

the costs of those benefits deducted from the 1000 dollars they would otherwise receive.

The idea of UBI may seem simple, but it's seductively positioned to maximize appeal

across the political spectrum.

The left can easily support the idea as a simple method to directly alleviate poverty.

The fact that it is given to everyone means the program will be resilient, and will not

stigmatize the poor.

But it's also hard to challenge for the right.

UBI does not really expand the size of government.

It has no risk of creating a bloated public bureaucracy.

The payout is lower than a full time job at minimum wage, and unlike many other government

assistance programs, there is no disincentive for those enrolled to work.

So, UBI is unlikely to create so-called 'welfare queens'.

UBI is also not a form of socialism, as Yang has argued:

“UBI is capitalism where income does not start at zero.”

Yang has also answered the dreaded “how will you pay for it?” question.

Partly, the spending will come from the 500-600 billion we already spend on welfare and other

poverty alleviation programs—the ones that whose recipients would lose the costs of those

benefits from their 1000 per month.

Yang also expects to generate the same amount from new revue driven by economic growth as

a result of instituting the program.

He got this figure based on The Roosevelt Institute's numbers, which suggest the program

would grow the economy by 2.5 trillion.

Yang expects to tax about 500-600 billion from that.

Next, Yang expects that the program will cut 100-200 billion dollars in government spending

on issues like health care, incarceration and homelessness services, as some studies

have shown that poverty is a major driver of crime and illness (both physical and mental).

I think we can all agree that studies don't need to show that poverty is also a major

driver of homelessness.

Finally, Yang expects to collect around 800 billion dollars from a Value Added Tax, a

form of corporate tax that is particularly difficult for large businesses to avoid paying.

The tax is specifically aimed at corporations like Amazon, one that frequently avoids paying

taxes, but is expected to be a major beneficiary of automation, which many, including Yang,

consider to be a key reason why a UBI is necessary.

According to Yang's website:

“Andrew Yang wants Universal Basic Income because we are experiencing the greatest technological

shift the world has ever seen.

By 2015, automation had already destroyed four million manufacturing jobs, and the smartest

people in the world now predict that a third of all working Americans will lose their job

to automation in the next 12 years.

Our current policies are not equipped to handle this crisis.

Even our most forward-thinking politicians are unprepared.

As technology improves, workers will be able to stop doing the most dangerous, repetitive,

and boring jobs.

This should excite us, but if Americans have no source of income—no ability to pay for

groceries, buy homes, save for education, or start families with confidence—then the

future could be very dark.

Our labor participation rate now is only 62.7% – lower than it has been in decades, with

1 out of 5 working-age men currently out of the workforce.

This will get much worse as self-driving cars and other technologies come online.”

UBI is often tied to automation, and embraced by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk,

but the idea is by no means new.

The idea has gone by many different names over the years--basic income, guaranteed income,

negative income tax, mincome, and unconditional free money—but its been advocated for, as

far back as the 60's by the likes of Martin Luther King and Richard Nixon.

The idea has, in fact, been tested in a variety of ways throughout the world.

Alaskans began receiving about ten percent of total petroleum revenues in 1976 through

the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.

Finland did a pilot test of UBI with about 2,000 unemployed citizens.

A city in Manitoba, Canada gave its 8,000 residents a minimum income in the mid-1970s.

The city of Stockton, California is currently giving residents 500 dollars per month.

Several experiments have been conducted throughout the developing world, and there are plenty

of examples I haven't listed here.

So far, the signals are generally positive.

The Finnish test group self-reported higher levels of health and happiness, although,

partly because of how the government muddled the parameters of the experiment, the pilot

test did not indicate a statistically significant increase in employment for those on UBI, compared

to other government assistance programs.

The more substantial, but older Manitoba test indicated that the basic income could completely

eliminate poverty without creating a work disincentive.

Several experiments found reductions in hospitalizations and crime.

On the whole, I think its reasonable to expect that UBI would alleviate poverty, increase

happiness, reduce crime, create better health outcomes, and be, at worst, neutral when it

comes to employment rates.

Still, none of the experiments I have mentioned have been sufficient to establish specific,

definitive expectations of how a basic income would impact the US economy.

Compared to a program like Single Payer Health care, UBI is still relatively untested throughout

the world.

It seems reasonable to me to pick away a bit at the figures Andrew Yang gives for how he's

going to pay for the program through increased economic activity and decreased healthcare

and incarceration costs.

His numbers are fairly precise, and he supports them with just one evaluation: the Roosevelt

Institute's projections.

UBI could end up underperforming when it comes to these general economic changes.

At the same time, it could exceed all expectations.

The one thing that I think requires no grand economic evaluation or pilot test to conclude

is that Yang's freedom dividend would reduce inequality, as it's design directly redistributes

money from the wealthiest corporations through a VAT, and puts that money into the pockets

of everyday Americans.

That, in and of itself, may be enough to convince millions of Americans to support the program.

The idea has been polled, somewhat, with the American people.

A data for progress poll from the summer of 2018 found UBI to have net positive support

among people of color and the white working class.

Support for the program was shown to be high amongst young people but quite low amongst

older folks, for an overall negative support of -2% overall.

A poll from the fall of 2017, conducted by Northeastern University and Gallup, with about

double the sample size, found similar results, with a net support of negative -4%.

However, the support was a solid 65% amongst democrats.

It should be noted of course, these polls were done before Andrew Yang began advocating

for the idea in the media, independent and establishment, progressive and conservative.

The reason Trump is president is because we automated away four million manufacturing

jobs...

...with Amazon sucking up 20 billion dollars of commerce every year, 30 percent of main

street stores are closing...

People talking about retraining coal miners to be software engineers

That makes no sense

My question is do we have to sit back and let this happen to the country?

Well, that's why I'm running for president

Under my plan everyone will receive a thousand bucks

It's the sweet spot bc it's enough to be impactful, but it's not so much that it will push people

out of the labor market

I don't know how much...

I can't do math...

(flabbergasted, but still condescending)

Do you have an agenda for black people?

...It overlaps with my main one...

(Still UBI) If his appearances have been effective, its

quite likely support for UBI has gained traction.

If its is an idea you would like to support, however, it may seem hopeless, since the ascendency

of Yang to the white house remains an improbability, at least when it comes to 2020.

That said, electing a President Yang is not the only way to move toward UBI.

--If enough Americans support his campaign, and Yang gains a serious voice in the democratic

primaries, his central policy will no doubt become a significant point of discussion.

Americans would have a chance to consider the proposal seriously, and likely be polled

on the subject again and again.

Should polling indicate growing, majority approval, major candidates may be moved to

adopt it into their platform.

Think about the impact Bernie Sanders had on the 2016 Democratic platform, despite losing

the primary.

The truth is, I'm sure Yang would love to be president, but he's stated that he would

consider it a victory just to get the idea in front of the American people.

To accomplish his real objective, making UBI a mainstream idea, Yang only really needs

to get other candidates to adopt the idea into their platforms.

When it comes to this far more modest goal, Yang supporters are not likely to have a hopeless

answer to this question:

Can he do it?

Thanks for reading the captions.

If you know other languages, why not translate this video?

You will receive no reward except an internal feeling of being better than everyone else

you encounter.