I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this one, probably, but I don’t care. While he has good points, which I’ll talk about, Andrew Yang is also deeply flawed as a candidate. It’s my goal here to explain why that is, and hopefully you leave with a better understanding of him and his policy positions. Let’s jump right in, starting with Yang’s favorite topic: Universal Basic Income (UBI), or as he’s been calling it, “The Freedom Dividend”.
The Freedom Dividend
So, first, what is it? Well, from his own website, his Freedom Dividend is a universal basic income guarantee of $1,000 per month to every American citizen over the age of 18. That’s pretty simple. Once you turn 18, you receive a check in the mail (or a direct deposit, or however you receive money) for $1,000 every month, forever. Doesn’t matter if you’re working or not, or what your income level is, or how many kids you have. It’s a flat rate that will only change to scale with cost of living increases.
On it’s face, it seems a good idea, and there’s a reason for that. A universal basic income is a good idea, depending on how it’s implemented. Therein lies the problem with the Freedom Dividend, however. Yang’s version of the benefit is deeply flawed on a fundamental level. But I’ll address that in a moment. First, I want to explain why the concept is good.
The Good
A universal basic income is something that has been talked about and experimented with around the world for quite some time, with great success. You can view studies about it here, which Yang also links to on his own website.
It makes sense. When people have a guaranteed income, they stress less about making necessary payments on bills and food expenses. Less stress translates to more general happiness, which in turn can have a dramatic effect on people’s overall health and well-being. In other words, less stress means fewer doctor visits.
It would also, as Yang points out, encourage things such as entrepreneurship. It’s very expensive and stressful to start a business, especially in the early years. The cost is a big put-off to people, as well as the risk. “What if it fails? We’ll be on the street!” A universal basic income would eliminate that hurdle and, in theory, encourage innovative entrepreneurs to take the step to create a business which would in turn create jobs and boost the economy.
A universal basic income would actually encourage people to work. I know that sounds counter-intuitive; why would people work when they can do nothing and receive $1,000 a month instead? The answer is that people like to be useful and have fulfilling careers. Additionally, again as Yang points out, a universal basic income is generally preferable to many of our current “welfare” programs, such as disability. Many of these programs stop paying out once someone finds a job. In theory this makes sense; if you’re employed, you don’t need social safety net assistance.
The problem is that in practice, many jobs don’t pay enough to live off of and – in many cases – actually pay less than the benefit programs. This, more than anything, is what causes some people to stop seeking employment – not all, I know it’s complicated, please don’t yell at me – and simply receive benefit checks. Yang’s Freedom Dividend would eliminate that. The extra $1,000 per month would not cease upon employment.
There are many other benefits of a universal basic income, and I encourage you to check them out for yourself. Just…not necessarily Yang’s version. Why? Read on…
The Bad
Remember those social safety net benefits I mentioned? The Freedom Dividend would replace them. Yang does mention that Veteran’s Benefits & Social Security would both remain in place, which is good. However, he has conspicuously left out the SNAP program, or as it’s usually know, Food Stamps.
What this means is that people would have to choose between receiving the Freedom Dividend or collecting food stamps, which is a choice many Americans literally cannot afford to make. Proponents claim that with the $1,000, you could just buy food and you wouldn’t need food stamps anymore, so what’s the problem? The problem is that bills exist, and I don’t need to tell anyone – least of all people living in poverty – that $1,000 a month disappears very, fast. And if you opt out of the Dividend, you’re left where you started.
Then, there’s his proposal to pay for the Dividend. The bulk of the payment would come from something called a Value-Added Tax (VAT). Put simply, a VAT is a sales tax that’s applied to each step in a business’ supply chain. Other countries make use of it. The biggest problem is that most studies seem to indicate that businesses compensate for this tax in a familiar fashion – they shunt the cost onto the consumer.
In countries that currently have a VAT, such as England, businesses usually pass around 50% of the VAT to the next link in the supply chain. This increases the prices they pay for components, and is inflationary. And of course, the consumer ends up paying half of all of the VAT for all the steps involved at purchase.
It gets worse, though. This article illustrates the actual cost to the poorest citizens under a Yang-driven Dividend. Essentially, poor people would end up seeing very little real benefit from the Dividend due to the costs of funding it through a VAT. It would end up being a regressive tax on them.
Last, but certainly not least, there’s nothing in his Freedom Dividend that would prevent landlords from arbitrarily jacking up the rent on their properties. If you think greedy slumlords won’t immediately raise rents to eat that “extra” $1,000 every month, I have a bridge to sell you. Without economic regulations & price controls tied into it, the Dividend would ultimately become a new form of minimum wage to fight over.
The Ugly
Most damning of all, however, is what the Freedom Dividend reveals about Andrew Yang’s attitude about the future of work in this country. One of the driving factors for Yang in implementing the Dividend is the concept that automation is coming fast and when it does, thousands of Americans will be left by the roadside as their jobs are replaced with machine labor.
This is a very real thing. As technology improves, jobs traditionally held by humans will be automated. We’re already seeing it in our daily lives. When you walk into a supermarket or drug store, half the cashier stations have been replaced by self-checkout machines. More advanced ATMs are eliminating the need for bank tellers. It’s only going to increase across industries as we continue advancing.
But Yang’s vision of the future is dystopian, not progressive. His attitude is predicated on the assumption that the elites – CEO’s like himself – will be the sole beneficiary of the positives of automation and the workers will be left behind. This is a defeatist attitude, and not one most leftists would agree with.
Technology, like everything else, is a tool. It isn’t inherently bad or good for anyone. It’s how it is used that decides that. A true progressive, leftist vision of automation would have it used to improve the lives of workers. Use it to eliminate drudge work that people hate. This is why having workers on boards of companies and more directly involved at decision-making levels is so vital. Look how things were before we had unions. Then we got unions and workers’ lives dramatically improved – and so did the economy. Despite the hand-wringing and negative propaganda by the elites of the time.
Andrew Yang’s vision, however, assumes that nothing about current workplace dynamics can change – or, more likely – he doesn’t want them to change. Remember, Andrew Yang, before he decided to run for President, was a CEO. He’s part of the elites that he sees benefiting from automation. This leads me to the conclusion that he wants to maintain his elite position while pretending to care about workers. The Freedom Dividend is a poor placating tactic to do that.
I encourage you all to read this thread on Twitter, in which Arash Kolahi does an excellent job of breaking down the problem with the Freedom Dividend I’ve outlined here.
Yang’s Other Stances
Quite apart from the Freedom Dividend, though that is problematic enough, Andrew Yang has several other policy positions that make him a bad candidate. I’m going to briefly touch on each here. I won’t spend too much time on them, both because most are self-explanatory and because this article is already running long.
Healthcare
Much like the Freedom Dividend, Andrew Yang’s stance on healthcare seems good but quickly falls apart under scrutiny. Yang started out his campaign by supporting the idea of Medicare For All, which I’ve talked about previously. However, more recently, he’s started the old tap-dance. For a time, his website changed the language of his healthcare stance from “single-payer” to “public option”.
Those paying attention – or who have read my article on the subject – understand that a public option is not Medicare For All, and it is not what we need. Anything short of single-payer allows wiggle room for insurance companies to gut and undermine a public option. To his credit, at time of writing, Yang has removed any such language from his website, however, as recently as November 3rd, he has still been talking about a public option. This alone makes him a losing option, for me and so many others.
Israel & Palestine
Andrew Yang has stated that he would support Israel and continue funneling obscene amounts of money to them as they enact a genocide on Palestinians. Do I need to say anything here? Next.
Wealth Tax
Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren have both proposed a plan to force the elites to pay their fair share of taxes. It’s amazing and would stimulate the economy so much – yes, even Warren’s version. Yang is against a wealth tax, saying it won’t work. His alternative? The Freedom Dividend. Big shock that a former CEO doesn’t want to be taxed. Next.
Drug De-Criminalization
I’m gonna take a break from the Yang-bashing with this one. I actually agree with him on this, and it’s the only area where he outflanks even Bernie Sanders from the left. Andrew Yang’s stated recently that he is in favor of decriminalizing all drugs, following the “Portugal Model”. For those who aren’t aware, some time ago Portugal addressed their drug problem by decriminalizing drugs. The result has been a drastic decrease in all the violence we normally associate with drugs, as well as a decrease in overall drug usage, surprisingly enough. There was also an upswing in addicts seeking treatment, a reduction in HIV diagnoses, and a decrease in deaths from overdoses.
While I would argue that full legalization would go even further, the least we could do to combat the frightening drug statistics in this country would be to decriminalize them. It would end the disastrous “War on Drugs” and we would even see improvements in other countries as the cartels lose their power. A similar thing occurred after Prohibition in the US with the Mafia.
As I said earlier, this is an area where Yang is 100% correct, and is even better than Bernie. Bernie still has not committed to the idea of blanket drug decriminalization. Take notes, Mr. Sanders.
Conclusion
Andrew Yang is a bad candidate. Though he has the drug-decriminalization going for him, all of his other policy positions would either do nothing to help our country – and the world – or would cause even more harm.
While I will always give Andrew Yang credit for bringing the concept of Universal Basic Income into American politics, his right-wing version is not only deeply flawed, but dangerous. Further, it is my belief that the country just plain isn’t ready to implement a Universal Basic Income at all. Think of it like a teenager learning to drive. Would you suddenly thrust them behind the wheel of a Mercedes and tell them to drive cross-country? Of course not. That’s the situation we’re in right now as a nation. We’re still fighting for basic rights like single-payer healthcare. A UBI, I believe, is a bit too advanced right now. Maybe in a few decades when we’ve decided that people shouldn’t have to go bankrupt to go to the doctor.
Beyond that, his stance on Israel would allow that rogue state to continue it’s genocide. And his wealth tax resistance would allow our oligarchs to continue plundering the country unchecked.
Ultimately, Andrew Yang is like every other candidate who isn’t Bernie Sanders: faux progressives trying to trick people into believing that they’re further left than they actually are. We can do better than Yang, and we will.
Come at me, Yang-Gang.