Things Are Even Worse Than You Think They Are | Andrew Yang at National Action Network (Full Speech)

He is running Democratic primary for president. He's an entrepreneur, founder of Venture for America, and one of the first to say, yes, let me come and speak to the National Action Network. And we want to hear from him. Mr. Andrew Lane, give him a hand. Holy cow, is it a privilege and honor to be here with you all today? I just followed Eric Holder, and I have to say, that guy was seriously thinking about running for president. Am I not? Am I? It's like, man, you heard that. You heard that. I also let's give Reverend Sharpton a round of applause for what he has built. He does not remember this, but he and I met several. I saw it's more like more than a decade ago. And holy cow, has he lost a lot of weight since then? And you know what that is, the holy cow alone. Oh, Drew. Yes. Yes. Leaving the cow alone will do that. But in a word, you know what that is, my friends, that is longevity. Longevity is a beautiful thing. So it's a privilege and honor to be here with you all because of what you represent and you represent, obviously, 12 candidates will be here with you all because we all know that African-American voters and leaders have helped choose the next president in many of the last cycles. But you all represent something even more profound than that. You represent moral leadership. And moral authority in this country. Now, you got that the hardest way possible. You got that through the historic subjugation and oppression and marginalization of African-Americans from day one or day minus 100 years. And better yet, you all are fighting for a better future. That's how you get moral authority. Now, you have this moral authority that most politicians will never have. Most Americans will never sniff. And as someone who's running for president now, I would acknowledge that very, very plainly. I grew up a skinny Asian kid in an all white suburb in New York. So I had that experience. But I know that that experience is the palest shadow of what most African-Americans experienced growing up and coming of age in this country. Because while I had words working against me, you have something much more cruel. You have numbers working against you and you all know what the numbers are. Now, I have about nine minutes with you. I'm going to do three things in this nine minutes. The first thing is going to sound impossible. The first thing is I'm going to convince you that things are even worse than you think they are. Now, you're all listening to this being like, no way he's going to be able to pull that off, but I'm going to pull it off. The second thing is I'm going to present a way forward. And the third is I'm going to let you know that the country needs you all more than ever right now. So how am I going to tell you all that things are even worse than you think they are? I'm a numbers guy. I'm a math guy and the numbers are cruel. So the numbers that you know of African-American median net worth is a small fraction of the national average. You all know that. You all know that African-Americans are almost six times more likely to be incarcerated than other groups. You all know that. But this is something that most of you do not know. That according to a study that was published in The Guardian a number of months ago, median African-American net worth is projected to go to zero by 2053, 34 years from now. Now you might be looking at yourselves being like, how is that possible? How could the median African-American net worth be projected to go to zero over the next 34 years? And I'm here to tell you exactly how that's going to happen. Right now the dynamics of this winner-take-all economy are about to take off. I have many friends in Silicon Valley and what we know is that capital and technology are about to converge in historic ways and assume more and more economic value. Now, the five most common jobs in the economy are this, administrative and clerical work, retail work, food service and food prep, truck driving and transportation, and manufacturing. Now many of those jobs have historically been filled by African-Americans and many of those jobs are going to disappear in the days to come. How many of you saw the Google AI demo where that AI did the job of a call center worker? Any of you see that? What do you think the time frame is on AI being able to do the job of an average call center worker who right now makes $14 an hour? Few years, that's right. 30% of American malls and stores are closing in the next number of years, four years. And why are they closing? Amazon, that's right. Amazon is vacuuming up $20 billion a year in commerce, pushing main street stores and malls into oblivion. And you know that working in retail is the most common job in the economy. The average retail worker is a 39-year-old woman making between $10 and $11 an hour. And we know she does not have much savings. What's her move going to be when those malls and stores close? How much did Amazon pay in federal taxes last year? Zero, that's right. They're this giant vacuum cleaner sucking the vitality out of your neighborhoods and communities and you're getting zero back. This is the buzzsaw. This is capital and technology converging in historic ways. This is going to be an economic natural disaster or unnatural disaster, if you want to look at it that way. And who loses in a natural disaster? You do. Communities of color, people with lower resources, people with lower access to capital and technology are going to be the big losers. All right, have I convinced you that things are even worse than you think? Fantastic. Job number one, the hard part, done. Now, number two, how the heck are we going to get out of this? What is the path forward? So as usual, you look to the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate every year, what was he championing in 1967? He was championing something called a guaranteed minimum income. He said, look, we have to just guarantee Americans a certain amount of money every year. And he said something similar to what Eric Holder just said. He said we need to team up with the impoverished and the exploited and the displaced of every class, every category, to try and make this happen because it's going to be a brutal fight. And he was so right that he was killed the next year. But if you read his book, Chaos or Community, in 1967, this is what he was championing. And he was not alone. Thomas Paine was for this at the founding of the country. Milton Friedman and 1,000 economists signed a study saying this would be great for America. It came this close to being law in 1971. It passed the House of Representatives twice. And then 11 years later, one state passed a dividend where now everyone in that state gets between $1,000 and $2,000 a year, no questions asked. And what state is that? Alaska. Yeah, most of you are like, Alaska? Like, what? Alaska. And how do they fund it? Oil. And what is the oil of the 21st century? Technology, data, AI, self-driving cars and trucks. What they did for the people of Alaska with oil, we will do for you and all Americans with technology money. This is the path forward. Now, if you've heard anything about me, you've heard that there's an Asian man running for president who wants to give everyone $1,000 a month. And all of those things are true. But think about what $1,000 a month would mean for everyone in your families and communities. It would mean children have a better chance to learn, have better nutrition, it would mean physical health would improve, mental health would improve, domestic violence goes down. Would this improve criminal justice? Yes, it would. I would suggest it would. Would it give people better access to voting rights and access to legal resources? Yes, it would. But most profoundly... How many of you all are parents? I'm a parent. Most profoundly, imagine being able to look your teenage son or daughter in the eye and say, starting at age 18, you will receive $1,000 a month from your country because your country loves you, your country values you, and you are just as American as everyone else. That is profound. Right now, what are we saying to our young people? We're saying, you can vote. Maybe. And then they look up, they see this system with pipes clogged full of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, and they despair. They say, is my vote meaningful? Is it going to be enough to turn the tide? And that's where number three comes in, which is where you all come in. So I am championing the freedom dividend, the trickle-up economy, from our people, our families, and our communities up. A community that works for us. Sorry, an economy that works for us. And an economy where instead of us serving the numbers, the numbers serve us. Now that is the vision of the economy that this country needs. It needs it very, very badly. This country does not understand what is happening. We're in the third inning of the greatest economic and technological transformation in the history of our country. And who are we blaming? Immigrants. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. And what we have to do is, we have to wake up our fellow Americans to the fact that it is not immigrants that are causing these economic problems. It's the Amazon black hole. It's technology advancing to a point where more and more of us are going to have a harder and harder time making ends meet. And the path forward is Dr. King's guaranteed minimum income, which I have rebranded the freedom dividend, because it tests better with more Americans with the word freedom in it. That was a joke. I don't know if people are going to laugh about that. Well, it's true. It's both the truth and a joke. So, this is what my campaign is all about. We've raised millions of dollars, and the average donation is only $17.83. So, my fans are even cheaper than Bernie's fans. But we're gaining steam all the time. Remember, I just got my CNN town hall next Sunday, so you can tune in at 8 p.m. But I will be the first to say there is no way I can do this alone. That without your moral authority, without your leadership, without your activism, this dream will not make it across the finish line. We will not be able to transform this economy into an economy that actually works for human beings, for families, and for your children. I need your help in the biggest way. I was with Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California. We were talking about universal basic income, which is another name this goes by. Raise your hand if you've heard of universal basic income. All right. So, if you haven't, now you have. Universal basic income is just a policy where everyone gets a certain amount of money. And in my plan, the Freedom Dividend, every American adult would receive $1,000 a month, free and clear, no questions asked, from day one. This would be hundreds of billions of dollars into African-American communities every year, forever. And there's nothing stopping a majority of citizens in a democracy from making this happen. Nothing at all. It's law in Alaska. It came this close to being law here in the United States, and we need it more than ever. But there is no way that I, Andrew Yang, can make this happen without your help. So, when I was with Michael Tubbs in Stockton, California, we were talking about universal basic income. We had a panel. It was a smaller group than this. And then he said to me something. He put his arm around me and said, Andrew, you can say things that I cannot and get away with it. And I looked at him, I said, thank you, but you can say things I cannot and get away with them the same way. They're just different things. But we need to team up in the biggest way. The country needs your moral leadership and authority more than ever, right now. And if you bring the moral leadership, I will bring the math. I will be the guy who beats Donald Trump in 2020. We will take this case all the way to the White House and win because the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. Thank you all very much, National International Network. Thank you. Andrew Yang, give him a hand.