Andrew Yang is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know about
the candidate and how he stacks up against the competition.
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Andrew Yang is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know ...
Grace Panetta
Yang is an entrepreneur who, among other things, wants to give every American
$1,000 a month in universal basic ...
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Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang
Who is Andrew Yang?
Current job: Entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate.
Age: 44
Family: Yang and his wife Evelyn have two young sons.
Hometown: Schenectady, New York.
Political party: Democratic.
Previous jobs: Corporate lawyer, healthcare startup entrepreneur, CEO of
Manhattan Test Prep, Founder and CEO of Venture for America.
Who is Andrew Yang's direct competition for the nomination?
Based on a recurring series of national surveys we conduct, we can figure out
who the other candidates competing in Andrew Yang's lane are, and who the
broader opponents are within the party.
Yang is a more recent addition to our surveys and at this time has an
insufficient sample size for which to draw conclusions.
INSIDER has been conducting a recurring poll through SurveyMonkey Audience on a
national sample to find out how different candidate's constituencies overlap.
We ask people whether they are familiar with a candidate, whether they would be
satisfied or unsatisfied with that candidate as nominee, and sometimes we also
ask whether they think that person would win or lose in a general election
against President Donald Trump.
What are Andrew Yang's policy positions?
- On healthcare:
- Yang supports Medicare For All and a single-payer healthcare system
where healthcare would be funded by the government as opposed to private
insurance agencies.
- He also wants to expand access to mental health services,advocating for
an increase in providers serving rural areas, requiring insurance companies to
cover postpartum depression screenings for new mothers, and incentivizing
providers to use AI for more efficient healthcare.
- On immigration:
- Yang supports an "eighteen-year" path to citizenship for undocumented
immigrants without criminal records who have lived in the United States for
long periods of time.
- He also pledges to sign the DREAM Act into law, affording protection
for undocumented people brought to the United States as children, and would
expand the H1-B and F-1 visa programs to attract skilled immigrants.
- Yang also wants to invest in new technology to help secure the US'
southern border, expand funding for Customs and Border Patrol, and reduce the
backlog in US asylum and immigration courts.
- On climate change:
- Yang supports US government investment in cutting-edge technologies
that could slow down the pace of climate change, like carbon capture and
geoengineering.
- He would end federal government subsidies and tax breaks for fossil
fuel companies, and tax carbon emissions.
- Yang would also direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
collaborate with private companies and local governments on innovative
solutions to climate change.
- On campaign finance/election reform:
- Yang supports a constitutional amendment that would overturn the
Citizens United v. FEC decision, as well as banning Super PACs and expanding
public funding for elections.
- As president, he says he would modernize and secure the US' existing
election infrastructure by updating voting technology.
- On abortion:
- Yang supports the right to choose abortion and affordable contraception
access. He also says he would nominate federal judges who also support legal
protection of abortion.
- On LGBTQ rights:
- Yang supports extending protected status under federal law to LGBTQ
individuals to safeguard them against discrimination based on sexual
orientation.
- He also would increase government funding for programs that aid LGBTQ
Americans who have faced discrimination.
- On education:
- Yang supports universal early childhood education, and the introduction
of life-skills education in high schools for students who want to pursue trades.
- He also wants to make two-year community college educationfree or
extremely low-cost, and implement a number of measures to implore four-year
colleges to reduce their tuition costs.
- Yang also would like to promote and expand the amount of technical and
vocational education available in high schools and colleges.
- Like fellow presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Yangsupports
increasing public school teacher pay.
- On guns:
- On Yang's campaign website, he presents a detailed plan to create a
new, multi-tiered licensing system for firearms similar to the different levels
of automobile licenses. These would require universal background checks.
- He would also introduce a federal weapons buyback program for those who
want to surrender their weapons. Yang wants to create uniform federal safety
standards and incentivize gun manufacturers to innovate new gun safety
technology.
- On criminal justice reform:
- Yang supports a number of measures to reduce incarceration rates in the
US, including legalizing marijuana, funding programs to re-integrate former
prisoners in society and reduce recidivism, and phasing out private prisons.
- He also wants to combat the opioid crisis by decriminalizing the
possession of small amounts of opioids and funding addiction treatment programs
by fining the pharmaceutical companies he sees as responsible for the crisis.
- Yang is also interested in federal funding to give American police
officers body cameras, expanding community policing initiatives, and investing
in "non-lethal weaponry that can be used to de-escalate conflicts."
- On trade:
- In an interview with the Basic Income Earth Network, Yang criticized
the Trump administration for waging a trade war with China, saying it was "not
productive" and causing headaches for businesses.
- On foreign policy:
- Yang would embody a non-interventionist style of foreign policy, saying
on his campaign website that he would repeal the Authorization for the use of
Military Force, fully returning the power to declare war to Congress.
- He also says he would focus on strengthening America's relationships
with its NATO allies and beef up the State Department's diplomacy efforts and
outreach.
- On taxes:
- Yang supports the United States introducing a 10% value-added tax on
big corporations, enacting a 0.1% tax on financial transactions, and ending the
carried-interest investment loophole on capital gains.
- He also supports automatic income tax filing, modernizing the IRS to
make it more efficient at processing taxes, and making tax day a federal
holiday.
- On jobs and the economy:
- The policy Yang is best known for is his Freedom Dividend, a universal
basic income program that would give $1,000 per month to every American adult
and would be funded in part by taxes on companies that benefit the most from
automation.
- Yang supports expanding vocational and technical training for students,
and a program where the IRS would reimburse relocation expenses for people who
have to move to find jobs.
- He would also create an American Journalism Fellowsprogram that would
give reporters grants to work at a local news outlet and report on local
stories for four years.
- On technology:
- As president, Yang would create a new cabinet-level position of
Secretary of Technology and a Department of Technology, which would regulate
artificial intelligence and other new technologies.
- He also wants to incentivize healthcare and medical device companies to
develop new, innovative medical technologies.
Some of Yang's other unique policy proposals include paying NCAA college
athletes, providing free marriage counseling for all, and creating an exchange
program for high school students to spend time in different parts of the
country and meet people they otherwise wouldn't.
What are Andrew Yang's biggest successes?
- In the mid-200s, Yang was the CEO of elite test prep company Manhattan
GMAT, which he and his partners sold to Kaplan in 2009.
- Yang went on to create Venture For America, a program that sends college
graduates to work at startups in cities hit especially hard by the financial
crisis.
- According to Yang, VFA's 500 fellows and alums have created more than
2,500 jobs in cities all around the country.
- Yang received a Champion of Change Award from the Obama White House in
2012, and was named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship in
2015. He's also made the Fast Company list of the "100 most creative people in
business."
How much money has Andrew Yang raised?
Yang disclosed raising $659,578 between October of 2017 and December of 2018,
and we'll know even more about his fundraising when he's due to file his next
FEC report by April 15. Earlier this month, Yang reported he had met the
grassroots fundraising requirement of receiving 65,000 individual donations
from 20 states to qualify for the first Democratic debates in June.
Could Andrew Yang beat Trump?
Yang is a more recent addition to our surveys and at this time has insufficient
sample size to draw conclusions with.
