Andrew Yang is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know about the candidate and how he stacks up against the competition.

Grace Panetta

Mar 29, 2019, 20:33 IST

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 education free 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, Yang supports 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 Fellows program 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.