Andrew Yang Quotes

I don't see basic income as a panacea, but we must have a new income distribution system. The old one has broken down irretrievably.

Universal basic income is not a solution in search of a problem - it is the obvious solution that has been in front of us for years. It only requires us to have the vision, empathy and courage to adopt it for the American people before it is too late.

I'm not sure there's another way to help move more people out of poverty than to raise the minimum wage.

Let's means-test benefits - let's means-test Social Security and Medicare and make the rich pay more for these benefits.

Those of us in the Congress must confront and overcome Republican intransigence to increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance and protecting food stamps.

Expanding the EITC can get us close to a universal basic minimum income.

The claim that if people had a basic income they would become lazy is prejudiced and has been refuted many times in many places.

Tax cuts that actually go to working-class, middle-class people, I'm not opposed to.

Now, you might say – “But why should we pay people for doing what they’re supposed to do?” It’s a fair question – but think of it this way: Every other anti-poverty program that’s been tried has failed to get the national poverty rate below 11 percent... Why shouldn’t we experiment with a program built around the one strategy that has proven time and again to work wonders – capitalism?

There are different varieties and forms of capitalism. There are priorities within the capitalist society so that you can have countervailing forces come in and empower your working people and your poor people. There are capitalist societies that do not have poverty. America needs to understand that.

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.

I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day.

We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more.

The New Deal's enmity for that system of free and competitive private enterprise which we call capitalism was fundamental.

I don't mind the rich getting richer, but the poor shouldn't be getting poorer, and there should be more people moving into the middle class.

The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs.

The minimum wage is something that F.D.R. put in place a long time ago during the Great Depression. I don't think it worked then. It didn't solve any problems then and it hasn't solved any problems in 50 years.

I don't believe in trickle-down economics. I don't think that people who have the most are inclined to share it, generally.

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

This is the middle-class equivalent of raising the minimum wage.

Prohibiting Poverty

Contemporary capitalist polities need to accept that inequality and insecurity will continue to be the inevitable results of market operations and find ways to shield citizens from their consequences—while somehow still preserving the dynamism that produces capitalism’s vast economic and cultural benefits in the first place.

Abolish Poverty

Capitalism with airbags—the type of capitalism I am a fan of.

A highly efficient and profitable capitalist system would make possible a welfare state, redistribution of income and greater social opportunities for all..