By Lauren Maiden
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang came to Baltimore Monday night to tout his plans for the future, declaring that he wants to turn the clock forward..
Yang, who describes himself as an entrepreneur and problem solver rather than a politician, called for a universal health care system, a guaranteed monthly stipend for all working Americans, and a program to stem the loss of jobs to robotics.
“I’m someone who likes numbers,” Yang said during his speech at Charm City Meadworks. “The reason why I’m in this race now is that I think that we’re dealing with this massive set of problems, and for whatever reason our politicians don’t recognize it or don’t want to talk about it.”
The Democratic candidate from Schenectady, New York, is the founder of Venture for America, an organization that works with entrepreneurs to create businesses and jobs around the country. VFA has helped created jobs in Baltimore.
Yang, 44, was named by President Obama as the Champion of Change in 2012 and the Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship in 2015.
Yang’s biggest concern is how businesses are using automation to permanently destroy jobs in the United States. He said the country has lost 4 million manufacturing jobs to robotics and other forms of artificial intelligence since 2000, adding that other sectors of the economy will also see devastating declines over the next five to 10 years.
“What [corporations] did to manufacturing workers, we’re about to do to the retail workers, the call-center workers, the fast food workers, and truck drivers, and on and on through the economy,” Yang said. “How many of you have seen self-service kiosk in McDonalds and other fast food restaurants? Food service and food preparation is the third most common job in this country.”
Yang warned that economic incentives will continue to destroy jobs through automation unless American society finds new ways to measure economic success.
One company estimated that it will save $168 billion by switching to self-driving trucks, Yang said. He said the trend to self-driving vehicles will hurt the 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States as well as the “5 million Americans who work at truck stops, motels and diners that rely on the trucks stopping every day.”
Yang believes Americans must rewrite the rules of the economy to favor human beings over robots.
“We have to create races where we can actually win,” he said. “Because in race against the machines, if you keep using capitol efficiency as your measuring stick, we do not win.”
The Columbia University law school graduate warned that basic jobs will also decline because of companies like Amazon sucking up to $20 billion in commerce every year. Yang said Amazon is pushing 30 percent of American malls and mainstream stores into what he calls “oblivion.”
Yang announced his presidential campaign in January and joined a crowded and growing field of Democratic candidates vying to take on President Trump in 2020, including U.S. senators Kamala Harris of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Others who are considering runs are former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, among others. Julian Castro, the former head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Obama, has also entered the race. Yang is polling at about 1 percent.
Yang has proposed what he calls the “Freedom Dividend,” a program in which all Americans ages 18 to 64 would receive a guaranteed monthly check for $1,000 . The proposal is modeled after Alaska’s oil check in which Alaskan citizens get an annual check based on the sale of the state’s oil reserves that year.
He said a universal monthly check would create 2 million new jobs and grow the consumer economy between 8 and 10 percent.
With the proposal of his economic plan, Yang said his goal is to make families and children stronger and healthier, increase graduation rates, improve mental and physical health, decrease domestic violence, reduce hospital visits, and help give the kids a chance to learn.
“We have to get money directly into the hands of the parents and the families and the communities in order to give these kids a chance to learn,” Yang said. “We could 100-percent afford it. We are the richest and most advanced society in the history of the world, and our economy is up to $20 trillion, up $5 trillion in the last 12 years.”
Yang also hopes to bring better health care options to Americans through Medicare for All, a proposal that is popular with several Democratic candidates this year. He said a universal health care system would help create higher paying jobs because employers would no longer have to worry about providing medical insurance for their employees.
“I know as a CEO, that our health-care system makes it harder to hire and makes it harder to treat people like full-time employees,” he said. “It makes it harder to start a business. It’s locking our people in place when we need to do the exact opposite.”