Matt Rourke/AP
Democratic presidential candidate and businessman Andrew Yang
- Andrew Yang has spoken with the White House about designing a plan to give Americans direct cash assistance to help workers affected by the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
- Yang said he had "been in touch" with the White House and said his team was "eager to offer our support to make sure this process runs as smoothly as possible."
- Yang's 2020 presidential campaign help popularize a universal basic income program he called The Freedom Dividend, which would give every American adult $1,000 a month, no strings attached.
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Former presidential contender Andrew Yang has been in contact with the White House about designing a plan to give Americans direct cash assistance as the novel coronavirus COVID-19 clobbers the US economy.
Yang rose up from a little-known fringe presidential candidate to a national sensation partly due to his unique policy platform, including a universal basic income program he called The Freedom Dividend, which would give every American adult $1,000 a month, no strings attached.
Yang's campaign argued that a non-means-tested UBI program would help solve economic inequality by giving workers a financial safety net, would bolster innovation, and would pay people for household domestic work like childcare which currently isn't compensated in the formal economy.
Now that Yang helped put UBI on the map, he's reaching across the aisle to assist the Trump administration.
In a statement released through his new non-profit organization Humanity Forward, Yang said he had "been in touch" with the White House and said his team was "eager to offer our support to make sure this process runs as smoothly as possible."
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle from Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton to Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Joe Kennedy III are all introducing their own legislation to establish emergency cash stimulus directly to Americans.
And in a Tuesday White House briefing, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the administration is "looking at sending checks to Americans immediately," beginning as soon as two weeks away.
A key distinction, however, between those plans and Yang's signature Freedom Dividend proposal is that while most lawmakers are proposing a one-time or temporary emergency cash infusion to help workers whether the ongoing coronavirus crisis, Yang would have made UBI a permanent fixture of the US policy landscape.
The virus' rapid spread has already resulted in thousands of Americans either losing their jobs, being laid off, or having their hours cut. There are at least 5,700 cases of the virus reported in the United States so far, including 96 deaths.
While the travel and hospitality industries were initially hardest hit, workers all across the United States from waiters, bartenders, and freelance workers in all industries are out of work as multiple states order all public places including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, concert halls, and gyms to close down.
Both the White House and leaders in Congress have suggested a variety of economic stimulus to help particularly affected industries and workers, including a payroll tax cut and, bailouts for some of the most seriously affected industries, and direct cash stimulus for workers.
Read more:
Tom Cotton is calling for Americans to get cash payments through the coronavirus outbreak
Mitt Romney just unveiled a plan to send every American adult a $1,000 check during the coronavirus outbreak
The economic crisis from the coronavirus could lead to 'disaster socialism' that briefly extends basic social benefits other countries already have
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