Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang is an American 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, entrepreneur, lawyer, and philanthropist. He is the founder of Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit that focuses on creating jobs in struggling American cities. Yang worked in various startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. After he founded VFA in 2011, the Obama administration selected him in 2012 as a “Champion of Change” and in 2015 as a “Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship”. Yang is the author of the 2014 book Smart People Should Build Things and the 2018 book The War on Normal People.

Yang launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election on November 6, 2017 with his signature campaign slogan “Make America Think Harder”. Initially considered a long-shot candidate, he gained significant momentum in early 2019 following appearances on several popular shows and podcasts. The campaign is known for its popularity online, with The New York Times calling Yang “The Internet’s Favorite Candidate”. Supporters of his campaign are informally known as the “Yang Gang”.

Yang’s signature policy is what he calls the “Freedom Dividend”, a universal basic income (UBI) in the form of $1,000 monthly for every American adult over age 18. Yang believes that UBI is a necessary response to the rapid development of automation, which is increasingly leading to workforce challenges, and that job displacement by automation is what led to Donald Trump’s election in 2016. The other two central elements of his platform are “Medicare for All” and “Human-Centered Capitalism”. More than 160 policy proposals are listed on his campaign website.