What Would You Do With the Freedom Dividend? | Andrew Yang for President

Hi, my name is David Ryan Barcega Castro Harris. I live in Chicago and I heard about Andrew from my cousin who heard him on The Breakfast Club and I was really interested to hear a candidate talk about something as, in some ways, revolutionary as universal basic income or the freedom dividend as he calls it. And while a lot of the Democratic candidates are talking about things that are important to me, Andrew has some of those things in his policies too, like the universal basic income is something that I really think is a uniting thing for everybody in the country. Everybody can benefit from it to push this policy forward into the mainstream. I've decided to start asking people to share what they would do with their universal income. And so starting today, I've been asking people to write down what they would do on this little whiteboard and we're using the hashtag freedomdividend2020 on Instagram to see what people respond to. First of all, people are always talking about paying off their debts. We live in a society where debt is so rampant, whether it is credit cards, student loan, or even your mortgages or medical bills. But beyond paying our debts, then people start to dream about the different things that they can do with their lives. For me, it looks like saving to buy a home for my wife and myself. I also want to start doing some of the restorative justice work that I do in schools on my own. I do that part-time right now and I subsidize my work full-time by being an x-ray tech. But I'm really passionate about inclusive communities that are not focused on exclusionary discipline and bringing people together, being in right relationship together, taking care of each other. And so with a little bit extra money, I think that's something that I could start to do.