Promising free money for the poor, Andrew Yang enters NYC mayoral race
Andrew Yang is entering the mayor’s race, his campaign said Wednesday night, betting that the same concept of universal basic income that helped make him a stronger than expected candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential contest will win over New York City voters.
In a slick video announcing his run, the entrepreneur touts his Big Apple creds — which have come under question in recent days — and talks about his signature policy proposal.
“We need to realize Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a guaranteed minimum income and get cash into the hands of people who need it most,” he says in a voice-over during shots of city streets.
He wants to give the poorest half million New Yorkers $2,000 to $5,000 a year, a sum to “be grown over time as it receives more funding from public and philanthropic organizations,” according to a memo shared with reporters. Yang would devote $1 billion a year to the checks, which would go to New Yorkers “regardless of their immigration status or life experience (i.e., past experience with incarceration).”
The funds would be distributed through a new “People’s Bank of New York City” on a monthly basis, the memo stated — though there’s no discussion of how Yang would pay for all this as the city faces a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall.
This latest version of universal basic income is a bit more modest than the one he proposed on the presidential campaign trail, $1,000 a month to all Americans. That proposal helped elevate Yang, who’s never held office before, on to the Democratic presidential debate stage alongside much more experienced pols. He dropped out of the contest in February, but not before creating a die-hard following known as the “Yang Gang.”
Whether his business record and self-deprecating remarks about being a math guy will win over voters in New York City — arguably tougher ground than small early-primary states — remains to be seen.
In recent days, he’s come under criticism for his tone-deaf explanation for why he and his family spent a long stretch of the pandemic in upstate New Paltz, even as millions of city dwellers faced unprecedented challenges.
“We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?” Yang told The New York Times.
The new video — directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, according to the Yang campaign — seems to attempt to address the backlash.
“I came of age, fell in love and became a father here,” Yang says after some words about the Mets and Nets. “New York City has been my home for 25 years.”
He’s set to give his campaign launch speech Thursday in Morningside Park in Manhattan.
Yang faces tough competition. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and city Comptroller Scott Stringer are seen as front-runners in the June Democratic primary, and Wall Street favorite Ray McGuire said Wednesday he had raised a whopping $5 million in about six weeks.
