Green Party of the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_State 

 

Green Party of the United States
Governing body	Green National Committee
Steering Committee	Co-Chairs[show]
Presidential nominee	Howie Hawkins (NY)
Vice Presidential nominee	Angela Walker (SC)
Founded	April 2001; 19 years ago
Split from	Greens/Green Party USA
Preceded by	Association of State Green Parties
Headquarters	6411 Orchard Avenue, Suite 101, Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Newspaper	Green Pages
Youth wing	Young Ecosocialists
Women's wing	National Women's Caucus
LGBT wing	Lavender Greens
Latinx wing	Latinx Caucus
Black wing	Black Caucus
Membership (February 2020)	246,377
Ideology	Green politics Anti-capitalism Communalism Eco-socialism
Political position	Left-wing
International affiliation	Global Greens
Regional affiliation	FPVA FSP
Colors	Green
Seats in the Senate	0 / 100
Seats in the House	0 / 435
Governorships	0 / 50
State Upper House Seats	0 / 1,972
State Lower House Seats	0 / 5,411
Territorial Governorships	0 / 6
Territorial Upper Chamber Seats	0 / 97
Territorial Lower Chamber Seats	0 / 91
Other elected offices	130 (Mar. 2020)
Appointed offices	6 (Nov. 2019)
Website
gp.org

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory, grassroots democracy; gender equality; LGBTQ rights; anti-war; anti-racism and ecosocialism. On the political spectrum, the party is generally seen as left-wing.

The GPUS was founded in 2001 as the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) split from the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). After its founding, the GPUS soon became the primary national green organization in the country, eclipsing the G/GPUSA, which was formed in 1991 out of the Green Committees of Correspondence (CoC), a collection of local green groups active since 1984. The ASGP, which formed in 1996, had increasingly distanced itself from the G/GPUSA in the late 1990s.

The Greens gained widespread public attention during the 2000 presidential election, when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7% of the popular vote. Nader was vilified by many Democrats, who accused him of spoiling the election for Al Gore, the Democratic candidate. Nader maintains that he was not a spoiler in the 2000 election.

History

Early years

The political movement that began in 1985 as the decentralized Committees of Correspondence evolved into a more centralized structure by 1990, opening a national clearinghouse and forming governing bodies, bylaws and a platform as the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCoC) and by 1990 simply The Greens. The organization conducted grassroots organizing efforts, educational activities and electoral campaigns.

Internal divisions arose between members who saw electoral politics as ultimately corrupting and supported the notion of an "anti-party party" formed by Petra Kelly and other leaders of the Greens in Germany vs. those who saw electoral strategies as a crucial engine of social change. A struggle for the direction of the organization culminated a "compromise agreement", ratified in 1990 at the Greens National Congress in Elkins, West Virginia and in which both strategies would be accommodated within the same 527 political organization renamed the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). It was recognized by the FEC as a national political party in 1991.

The compromise agreement subsequently collapsed and two Green party organizations have co-existed in the United States since. The Green Politics Network was organized in 1990 and the National Association of Statewide Green Parties formed by 1994. Divisions between those pressing to break onto the national political stage and those aiming to grow roots at the local level continued to widen during the 1990s. The Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) encouraged and backed Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. By 2001, the push to separate electoral activity from the G/GPUSA issue-based organizing led to the Boston Proposal and subsequent rise of the Green Party of the United States. The G/GPUSA lost most of its affiliates in the following months and dropped its FEC national party status in 2005.

Ideology

Values

The Green Party of the United States follows the ideals of green politics, which are based on the Four Pillars, namely:

1. Ecological wisdom,
2. Social justice,
3. Grassroots democracy, and
4. Nonviolence.

The Ten Key Values, which expand upon the Four Pillars, are as follows:

1. Grassroots democracy,
2. Social justice and equal opportunity,
3. Ecological wisdom,
4. Nonviolence,
5. Decentralization,
6. Community-based economics,
7. Feminism and gender equality,
8. Respect for diversity,
9. Personal and global responsibility, and
10. Future focus and sustainability.

The Green Party does not accept donations from corporations, political action committees (PACs), 527(c) organizations or soft money. The party's platforms and rhetoric harshly criticize corporate influence and control over government, media, and society at large.

Ecosocialism

In 2016, the Green Party passed a motion in favor of rejecting both capitalism and state socialism, and instead supporting "alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power". The motion states the change that the party says could be described as promoting "'ecological socialism,' 'communalism,' or the 'cooperative commonwealth'".

Political positions

Economic issues

Healthcare

The Green Party supports the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system. They have also called for contraception and abortion procedures to be available on demand.

Education

The Green Party calls for providing tuition-free college at public universities and vocational schools, increasing funding for after-school and daycare programs, cancelling all student loan debt, and repealing the No Child Left Behind Act. They are strongly against the dissolution of public schools and the privatization of education.

Green New Deal

In 2006, the Green Party developed a Green New Deal that would serve as a transitional plan to a one-hundred-percent clean, renewable energy by 2030 utilizing a carbon tax, jobs guarantee, tuition-free college, single-payer healthcare and a focus on using public programs.

Social issues

Criminal justice

The Green Party favors the abolition of the death penalty, repeal of Three-strikes laws, banning of private prisons, legalization of marijuana, and decriminalization of other drugs.

Racial justice

The Green Party advocates for "complete and full" reparations to the African American community, as well the removal of the Confederate flag from all government buildings.

LGBT+ rights

The party supports same-sex marriage, the right of access to medical and surgical treatment for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and withdrawing foreign aid to countries with poor LGBT+ rights records.

Foreign policy

The Green Party calls on the United States to join the International Criminal Court, and sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and Non-Proliferation Treaty. Additionally, it supports cutting the defense budget in half, as well as prohibiting all arms sales to foreign countries.

Iran

The Green Party supports the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to decrease sanctions while limiting Iran's capacity to make nuclear weapons.

Israel/Palestine

The Green Party advocates for the Palestinian right of return and cutting all U.S. aid to Israel. It has also expressed support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Structure and composition

Committees

The Green Party has two national committees recognized by the Federal Election Commission (FEC):

• The Green National Committee (GNC)
• The Green Senatorial Campaign Committee (GSCC)

Green National Committee

The GNC is composed of delegates elected by affiliated state parties. The state parties also appoint delegates to serve on the various standing committees of the GNC. The National Committee elects a steering committee of seven co-chairs, a secretary and a treasurer to oversee daily operations. The National Committee performs most of its business online, but it also holds an annual national meeting to conduct business in person.

Caucuses

Five Identity Caucuses have achieved representation on the GNC:

• Black Caucus
• Latinx Caucus
• Lavender Greens Caucus
• National Women's Caucus
• Young Ecosocialists

Other caucuses have worked toward formal recognition by the GNC:

• Disability Caucus
• Labor Caucus
• Indigenous Caucus
• Elder Caucus

Geographic distribution

The Green Party has its strongest popular support on the Pacific Coast, Upper Great Lakes, and Northeast, as reflected in the geographical distribution of Green candidates elected. As of June 2007, Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 Greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006. Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).

The 2016 presidential campaign of Jill Stein got substantive support from counties and precincts with a high percentage of Native American population. For instance, in Sioux County (North Dakota, 84,1% Native American), Stein gained her best county-wide result: 10.4% of the votes. In Rolette County (also North Dakota, 77% Native American), she got 4.7% of the votes. Other majority Native American counties where Stein did above state average are Menominee (WI), Roosevelt (MT) and several precincts in Alaska.

In 2005, the Green Party had 305,000 registered members in states allowing party registration and tens of thousands of members and contributors in the rest of the country. One challenge that the Green Party (as well as other third parties) faces is the difficulty of overcoming ballot access laws in many states, yet the Green Party has active state parties in all but a few states.

Office holders

Musician Jello Biafra ran for several offices with the Green Party, including for President in 2000

 

Malik Rahim, former Black Panther Party activist, ran for Congress in 2008 with the Green Party

 

Psychiatrist Joel Kovel ran for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2000

 

2012 and 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein

As of October 2016, 143 officeholders in the United States were affiliated with the Green Party, the majority of them in California, several in Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with five or fewer in ten other states. These included one mayor and one deputy mayor and fourteen county or city commissioners (or equivalent). The remainder were members of school boards, clerks and other local administrative bodies and positions.

Several Green Party members have been elected to state-level office, though not always as affiliates of the party. John Eder was elected to the Maine House of Representatives, re-elected in 2004, but defeated in 2006. Audie Bock was elected to the California State Assembly in 1999, but switched her registration to independent seven months later running as such in the 2000 election. Richard Carroll was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2008, but switched parties to become a Democrat five months after his election. Fred Smith was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2012, but re-registered as a Democrat in 2014. In 2010, former Green Party leader Ben Chipman was elected to the Maine House of Representatives as an unenrolled candidate and was re-elected in 2012 and 2014. He has since registered as a Democrat, and is serving in the Maine Senate.

Gayle McLaughlin was twice elected mayor of Richmond, California, defeating two Democrats in 2006 and then reelected in 2010; and elected to City Council in 2014 after completing her second term as mayor. With a population of over 100,000 people, it was the largest American city with a Green mayor. Fairfax, California; Arcata, California; Sebastopol, California; and New Paltz, New York are the only towns in the United States to have had a Green Party majority in their town councils. Twin Ridges Elementary in Nevada County, California held the first Green Party majority school board in the United States.

On September 21, 2017, Ralph Chapman, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, switched his party registration from unaffiliated to Green, providing the Green Party with their first state-level representative since 2014. Henry John Bear became a member of the Green Party in the same year as Chapman, giving the Maine Green Independent Party and GPUS its second currently-serving state representative, though Bear is a nonvoting tribal member of the Maine House of Representatives.

Though several Green congressional candidates have topped 20%, no nominee of the Green Party has been elected to office in the federal government. In 2016, Mark Salazar set a new record for a Green Party nominee for Congress. Running in the Arizona 8th district against incumbent Republican Congressman Trent Franks, Salazar received 93,954 votes or 31.43%.

List of national conventions and annual meetings

The Green National Convention is scheduled in presidential election years and the Annual National Meeting is scheduled in other years. The Green National Committee conducts business online between these in-person meetings.

• 1996 – Los Angeles, California
• 2000 – Denver, Colorado
• 2001 – Santa Barbara, California
• 2002 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 2003 – Washington, D.C.
• 2004 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• 2005 – Tulsa, Oklahoma
• 2006 – Tucson, Arizona
• 2007 – Reading, Pennsylvania
• 2008 – Chicago, Illinois
• 2009 – Durham, North Carolina
• 2010 – Detroit, Michigan
• 2011 – Alfred, New York
• 2012 – Baltimore, Maryland
• 2013 – Iowa City, Iowa
• 2014 – Saint Paul, Minnesota
• 2015 – St. Louis, Missouri
• 2016 – Houston, Texas
• 2017 – Newark, New Jersey
• 2018 – Salt Lake City, Utah
• 2019 – Salem, Massachusetts
• 2020 – Virtual Online (originally planned for Detroit, Michigan prior to COVID-19 pandemic)

Presidential ballot access

History of Green Party ballot access by state or territory
	ASGP		GPUS
	1996	2000	2004	2008	2012	2016	2020
#States + D.C. (#write-in)	22 (14)	44 (4)	28 (14)	33 (10)	37 (6)	45 (3)	30 (17)
#Pos. Elect. Votes (#Pos. w-i E.V.)	239 (200)	481 (32)	294 (201)	413 (68)	439 (47)	480 (42)	381 (133)
Alabama	Not on ballot	On ballot	Not on ballot		On ballot		(write-in)
Alaska	On ballot			Not on ballot	On ballot		(write-in)
Arizona	(write-in)	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot			(write-in)
Arkansas	On ballot
California	On ballot
Colorado	On ballot
Connecticut	On ballot			(write-in)		On ballot
Delaware	(write-in)	On ballot
District of Columbia	On ballot
Florida	On ballot
Georgia	Not on ballot	(write-in)
Hawaii	On ballot
Idaho	Not on ballot	(write-in)			On ballot		(write-in)
Illinois	(write-in)	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
Indiana	(write-in)
Iowa	On ballot
Kansas	(write-in)	On ballot	(write-in)			On ballot	(write-in)
Kentucky	(write-in)	On ballot	Not on ballot		On ballot		(write-in)
Louisiana	On ballot						Not on ballot
Maine	On ballot
Maryland	(write-in)	On ballot
Massachusetts	(write-in)	On ballot
Michigan	(write-in)	On ballot
Minnesota	On ballot
Mississippi	Not on ballot	On ballot
Missouri	(write-in)	On ballot	Not on ballot	(write-in)	Not on ballot	On ballot
Montana	Not on ballot	On ballot		(write-in)	Not on ballot	On ballot	(write-in)
Nebraska	Not on ballot	On ballot			Not on ballot	On ballot	(write-in)
Nevada	On ballot				Not on ballot
New Hampshire	Not on ballot	On ballot	Not on ballot	(write-in)		On ballot	(write-in)
New Jersey	On ballot
New Mexico	On ballot
New York	On ballot		(write-in)	On ballot
North Carolina	(write-in)	Not on ballot	(write-in)		Not on ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
North Dakota	Not on ballot	On ballot	Not on ballot		On ballot		(write-in)
Ohio	(write-in)	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
Oklahoma	Not on ballot
Oregon	On ballot
Pennsylvania	(write-in)	On ballot		Not on ballot	On ballot		(write-in)
Rhode Island	On ballot						(write-in)
South Carolina	Not on ballot	On ballot
South Dakota	Not on ballot
Tennessee	Not on ballot	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
Texas	(write-in)	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
Utah	On ballot		(write-in)	On ballot
Vermont	On ballot		Not on ballot	(write-in)		On ballot
Virginia	Not on ballot	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot			(write-in)
Washington	On ballot
West Virginia	Not on ballot	On ballot	(write-in)	On ballot
Wisconsin	On ballot						(write-in)
Wyoming	Not on ballot	(write-in)	Not on ballot			On ballot	(write-in)

Electoral results

President and Vice President

Year	Presidential nominee	Home state	Previous positions	Vice presidential nominee	Home state	Previous positions	Votes	Notes
2020	Howie Hawkins (campaign)	New York	Socialist Nominee for President of the United States (2020) Nominee for Governor of New York (2010; 2014; 2018)	Angela Walker	South Carolina	Socialist Nominee for Vice President of the United States (2016; 2020) Legislative Director of ATU Local 998 (2011-2013)	TBD
2016	Jill Stein (campaign)	Massachusetts	(see below for previous positions) Nominee for President of the United States (2012)	Ajamu Baraka	Illinois	Activist	1,457,216 (1.1%) 0 EV
2012	Jill Stein (campaign)	Massachusetts	Nominee for Governor of Massachusetts (2002; 2010) Nominee for Massachusetts's 9th Middlesex State House of Representatives district (2004) Member of the Lexington Town Meeting (2005–2011) Nominee for Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth (2006)	Cheri Honkala	Pennsylvania	Activist Nominee for Sheriff of Philadelphia (2011)	469,627 (0.4%) 0 EV
2008	Cynthia McKinney (campaign)	Georgia	Member of the Georgia House of Representatives (1989–1993) Member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia's 11th district (1993–1997) Member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia's 4th district (1997–2003; 2005–2007)	Rosa Clemente	New York	Community organizer	161,797 (0.1%) 0 EV
2004	David Cobb (campaign)	Texas	Lawyer Nominee for Attorney General of Texas (2002)	Pat LaMarche	Maine	Nominee for Governor of Maine (1998)	119,859 (0.1%) 0 EV
2000	Ralph Nader (campaign)	Connecticut	Nominee for President of the United States (1996)	Winona LaDuke	Minnesota	Nominee for Vice President of the United States (1996)	2,882,955 (2.7%) 0 EV
1996	Ralph Nader (campaign)	Connecticut	Lawyer, activist	Winona LaDuke	Minnesota	Environmentalist	685,297 (0.7%) 0 EV

Congress

House of Representatives

Election year	No. of overall votes	% of overall vote	No. of overall seats won
1992	134,072	0.14	0 / 435
1994	52,096	0.07	0 / 435
1996	42,510	0.05	0 / 435
1998	70,932	0.11	0 / 435
2000	260,087	0.26	0 / 435
2002	297,187	0.40	0 / 435
2004	344,549	0.30	0 / 435
2006	243,391	0.29	0 / 435
2008	580,263	0.47	0 / 435
2010	252,688	0.29	0 / 435
2012	372,996	0.30	0 / 435
2014	246,567	0.30	0 / 435
2016	515,263	0.42?	0 / 435
2018	247,021	0.22	0 / 435

Senate

Election year	No. of overall votes	% of overall vote	No. of overall seats won
2000	685,289	0.90	0 / 34
2002	94,702	0.20	0 / 34
2004	157,671	0.20	0 / 34
2006	295,935	0.50	0 / 33
2008	427,427	0.70	0 / 33
2010	516,517	0.80	0 / 37
2012	212,103	0.20	0 / 33
2014	152,555	0.32	0 / 33
2016	695,604	0.97?	0 / 33
2018	177,498	0.21	0 / 33

Best results in major races

Office	Percent	District	Year	Candidate
President	10.07%	Alaska	2000	Ralph Nader
	6.92%	Vermont	2000
	6.42%	Massachusetts	2000
US Senate	20.5%	Arkansas	2008	Rebekah Kennedy
	14.3%	District of Columbia	2006	Joyce Robinson-Paul
	13.7%	Hawaii	1992	Linda Martin
US House	27.5%	California District 34	2018	Kenneth Mejia
	23.2%	Arkansas District 2	2008	Deb McFarland
	22.7%	California District 40	2018	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan
Governor	10.4%	Illinois	2006	Rich Whitney
	10.3%	New Mexico	1994	Roberto Mondragón
	9.5%	Maine	2006	Pat LaMarche
Other statewide	32.7%	New Mexico State Treasurer	1994	Lorenzo Garcia
	32.4%	Arkansas State Treasurer	2010	Bobby Tullis
	26.7%	Arkansas Attorney General	2010	Rebekah Kennedy
State Legislature	67.1%	Maine District 38	2002	John Eder
	50.9%	Maine District 118	2004
	48.4%	Maine District 118	2006

Fundraising and position on Super PACs

In the early decades of Green organizing in the United States, the prevailing American system of money-dominated elections was universally rejected by Greens, so that some Greens were reluctant to have Greens participate in the election system at all because they deemed the campaign finance system inherently corrupt. Other Greens felt strongly that the Green Party should develop in the electoral arena and many of these Greens felt that adopting an alternative model of campaign finance, emphasizing self-imposed contribution limits, would present a wholesome and attractive contrast to the odious campaign finance practices of the money-dominated major parties.

Over the years, some state Green parties have come to place less emphasis on the principle of self-imposed limits than they did in the past. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that Green Party fundraising (for candidates' campaigns and for the party itself) still tends to rely on relatively small contributions and that Greens generally decry not only the rise of the Super PACs, but also the big-money system, which some Greens criticize as plutocracy.

Some Greens feel that the Green Party's position should be simply to follow the laws and regulations of campaign finance. Other Greens argue that it would injure the Green Party not to practice a principled stand against the anti-democratic influence of money in the political process. Candidates for office, like Jill Stein, the 2012 and 2016 Green Party nominee for the President of the United States, typically rely on smaller donations to fund their campaigns.

1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns were prior to formation of GPUS but campaign was endorsed by existing state Green Parties and predecessors ASGP and G/GPUSA.

Electoral vote allocation for 1996 and 2000 based on 1990 census.

Electoral vote allocation for 2004 and 2008 based on 2000 census.

While Stein and Baraka did not receive any electoral votes, Green Winona LaDuke received one vote for Vice President from a Washington faithless elector; the presidential vote went to Faith Spotted Eagle, a Democrat.

Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.6% of the vote, but they were not affiliated with the Green Party.

Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.4% of the vote; however, they were not affiliated with the Green Party.

Nader was not formally nominated by the party itself, but he did receive the endorsement of a large number of state parties and is considered as the de facto Green Party candidate.

 

Andrew Yang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang

 

Andrew Yang
Yang in 2019
Born	January 13, 1975 (age 45) Schenectady, New York, U.S.
Education	Brown University (AB) Columbia University (JD)
Occupation	Entrepreneur attorney political commentator
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Evelyn Yang ​ (m. 2011)​
Children	2 sons
Awards	Champions of Change (2012) Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship (2015) Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Public Service (2021)
Website	movehumanityforward.com
Signature

Andrew Yang
Traditional Chinese	楊安澤
Simplified Chinese	杨安泽

Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur and former presidential candidate. Originally a corporate lawyer, Yang began working in startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. In 2011, he founded Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit organization focused on creating jobs in cities struggling to recover from the Great Recession. He then ran as a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

The son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang was raised in New York. He attended Brown University and then Columbia Law School. Dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, Yang began working for startups during the dot-com bubble before spending a decade as an executive at test preparation company Manhattan Prep. In 2011, Yang founded VFA, which recruits top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program at startups in developing cities across the United States. The Obama administration selected him in 2011 as a "Champion of Change" and in 2015 as a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship." Yang left VFA in 2017 to focus on his presidential campaign. In 2018, he authored The War on Normal People, which outlines several of his campaign's central ideas.

On November 6, 2017, Yang filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Yang's campaign largely focused on responding to the rapid development of automation, which is increasingly leading to workforce challenges and economic instability in the United States. His signature policy is the "Freedom Dividend," a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month to every American adult, a response to job displacement by automation, one of the primary factors that he claims led to Donald Trump's election in 2016. Considered a dark horse candidate throughout much of the primary, Yang received significant popularity online, with The New York Times calling him "The Internet's Favorite Candidate." News outlets described Yang as the most surprising candidate of the 2020 election cycle, going from a relative unknown to a major competitor in the race. Yang qualified for and participated in seven of the first eight Democratic debates, and has been credited^[6] with elevating discussions on UBI, automation, and autism to the national level, as well as for engaging Asian Americans in presidential politics.

Yang's campaign was noted for its happy-go-lucky and "tech-friendly" nature. His supporters, informally known as the "Yang Gang", included several high-profile celebrity endorsements and were noted for their ideological and political diversity. Yang suspended his campaign on February 11, 2020, shortly after the New Hampshire primary, pledging that he and his movement are "just getting started." On February 19, Yang joined CNN as a political commentator. On March 5, Yang announced the creation of the nonprofit organization Humanity Forward, dedicated to promoting the ideas he campaigned on during his run.

Early life and education

Yang was born on January 13, 1975, in Schenectady, New York. His parents emigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. in the 1960s, and met while they were both in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. His father graduated with a PhD in physics and worked in the research labs of IBM and General Electric, generating over fifty patents in his career. His mother graduated with a master's degree in statistics before becoming a systems administrator at a local university, and later an artist. Yang has an older brother, Lawrence, who is a psychology professor at New York University. Yang's father, uncle, and cousin also became professors.

Yang grew up in Westchester County, New York, first in Somers, then in Katonah. Yang was one of the few children of East-Asian descent in his hometown, and he later described being bullied and called racial slurs by classmates while attending public school, in part because he was one of the smaller kids in his class after skipping a grade. In The War on Normal People (2018), he wrote, "Perhaps as a result, I've always taken pride in relating to the underdog or little guy or gal." When Yang was 12 years old, he scored a 1220 out of 1600 on the SAT, qualifying him to attend the Center for Talented Youth—a summer program for gifted kids run by Johns Hopkins University—which he attended for the next five summers. Yang later attended Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite boarding school in New Hampshire. 

Yang has claimed that he was part of the 1992 U.S. national debate team and competed at the world championships in London. Yang graduated from Exeter in 1992. He enrolled at Brown University, where he majored in economics and political science, and graduated in 1996. He then attended Columbia Law School, earning a Juris Doctor in 1999.

Career

Early career

After graduating from law school, Yang began his career as a corporate attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City. He quickly grew dissatisfied with the work, finding it grueling and unfulfilling. Yang later described the job as "a pie-eating contest, and if you won, your prize was more pie." He began to desire a career where he would get to "build something." He left the law firm after five months, which he has called "the five worst months of my life."

In February 2000 Yang joined his office mate, Jonathan Philips, in launching Stargiving, a website for celebrity-affiliated philanthropic fundraising. The startup had some initial success, but folded in 2002 as the dot-com bubble burst. Yang became involved in other ventures, including a party-organizing business. From 2002 to 2005, he served as the vice president of a healthcare startup.

Manhattan Prep

After working in the healthcare industry for four years, Yang left MMF Systems to join his friend Zeke Vanderhoek at a small test preparation company, Manhattan Prep. In an appearance on the podcast Freakonomics, Yang said he "personally taught the analyst classes at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley" during the 2008 financial crisis. In 2006, Vanderhoek asked Yang to take over as CEO. While Yang was CEO, the company primarily provided GMAT test preparation. It expanded from five to 69 locations and was acquired by Kaplan, Inc. in December 2009. Yang resigned as the company's president in early 2012. Yang later said it was during his time at Manhattan Prep that he became a millionaire.

In September 2019 testimony before the New York City Commission on Gender Equity, former employee Kimberly Watkins testified that Yang had fired her because he felt that she would not work as hard after getting married. Yang has denied the allegations, saying, "Kimberly Watkins' facts about her break from Manhattan Prep are inaccurate. During my more than a decade as CEO, I have worked with many women, married and otherwise, and value their work and dedication as important to the success of any institution." In an appearance on The View, Yang said, "I've had so many phenomenal women leaders that have elevated me and my organizations at every phase of my career, and if I was that kind of person I would never have had any success."

In November, a former employee of Yang's at Manhattan GMAT filed a lawsuit against him for allegedly paying her less than her male co-workers and subsequently firing her for asking for a raise. Yang and another female employee at the company disputed the anonymous woman's claim that she was in an equivalent position to the male co-workers she cited.

Venture for America

Following Kaplan's acquisition of Manhattan Prep in late 2009, Yang began to work on creating a new nonprofit fellowship program, Venture for America (VFA), which he founded in 2011 with the mission "to create economic opportunity in American cities by mobilizing the next generation of entrepreneurs and equipping them with the skills and resources they need to create jobs." VFA was launched with $200,000 and trained 40 graduates in 2012 and 69 in 2013, sending them to Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Providence. VFA added Columbus, Miami, San Antonio and St. Louis in 2014, with a class of 106.

Yang speaks about entrepreneurship at the 2015 Techonomy Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

VFA's strategy was to recruit the nation's top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program in which they would work for and apprentice at promising startups in developing cities across the United States. Yang's book Smart People Should Build Things (2014) argues that the top universities in the country cherry-pick the smartest kids out of small towns and funnel them into the same corporate jobs in the same big cities. VFA's goal is to help distribute that talent around the country and incentivize entrepreneurship for economic growth.

After 2011 VFA grew, reaching a $6 million annual operating budget in 2017, and operating in about 20 U.S. cities, adding Kansas City, Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and St. Louis. VFA began running a "startup accelerator" in Detroit and launched a seed fund and an investment fund for fellows.

VFA quickly received national attention, including from the Obama administration. In 2011, Yang was selected as a "Champion of Change, a program "[recognizing] ordinary Americans across the country who are doing extraordinary work in their communities. In 2015, Yang was recognized as a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship.

In 2014, Yang published Smart People Should Build Things, which emphasized the importance of intelligent people becoming entrepreneurs and engaging in the startup economy, rather than pursuing more traditional careers. Generation Startup, a documentary film about six startups in Detroit launched through the VFA program, was released in 2016. It was co-directed by Cynthia Wade and Cheryl Miller Houser.

In March 2017, Yang stepped down from his position as CEO of VFA, but continued to advise startups aligned to his signature policy of universal basic income throughout his presidential campaign.

Humanity Forward

On March 5, 2020, following the suspension of his presidential campaign, Yang announced that he was creating the nonprofit organization Humanity Forward, dedicated to promoting the ideas he campaigned on during his run, such as UBI and data privacy. Humanity Forward will also seek to engage and activate new voters while supporting like-minded down-ballot candidates, following the model of the pro-Bernie Sanders 501(c)4 Our Revolution. Yang also announced that the organization would give away $500,000 in UBI to the residents of Hudson, New York to demonstrate UBI's benefits.

In mid-March, several prominent Democrats and Republicans advocated for basic income in response to the coronavirus pandemic. After the Trump administration said it was considering a form of basic income in response to the pandemic, Yang announced that he had been in touch with the White House and had offered his team's services. On March 20, CNN reported that Humanity Forward would soon spend $1 million on $1,000 monthly payments to 500 low-income households in the Bronx during the crisis. Yang tweeted that the number of households was expected to double with additional funding. On August 3, Yang announced that his organization was partnering with The $1K Project, an online network which helps to identify families in need, who will be awarded three months of $1,000 payments. One of the network's founders describes the program as "a bridge to reemployment or other kinds of support."

Net worth

Media outlets have provided several estimates of Yang's net worth: $1 million according to Forbes, between $834,000 and $2.4 million according to The Wall Street Journal, and between $3 million and $4 million according to Newsweek.

2020 presidential campaign

Overview

Yang makes a speech in New Hampshire in January 2019. His book, The War on Normal People, is displayed.

On November 6, 2017, Yang filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in 2020. The campaign began with a small initial staff working out of an apartment owned by Yang's mother. He ran on multiple slogans, including "Humanity First", "Make America Think Harder (MATH)", and "Not Left, Not Right, Forward." Initially considered a longshot, Yang's campaign gained significant momentum in February 2019 following an appearance on the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. He has since appeared on numerous other podcasts and shows, including The Breakfast Club, The Ben Shapiro Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher. By March 2019, Yang had met the polling and fundraising thresholds to qualify for the first round of Democratic primary debates. In August 2019, he met the higher thresholds to qualify for the second round of Democratic debates. Later, he also qualified for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Democratic debates. Yang was unable to qualify for the January 2020 debate due to not having met a polling threshold in enough DNC Certified national polls. He did qualify for the February 2020 debate.

Yang's campaign focused largely on policy, in what Reuters described as a "technocratic approach." Yang regularly called Donald Trump a symptom of a wider problem in the economy, rather than the problem itself. According to The New York Times, Yang was known for doing interviews with conservative news outlets, and "although [Yang] tweets often, he almost never tweets about Mr. Trump." This approach was exemplified by one of Yang's campaign slogans: "Not Left, Not Right, Forward." According to a July 2019 YouGov poll, Yang was one of two 2020 Democratic candidates, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, with double-digit support among voters who voted for Trump in 2016. Polling conducted by Business Insider in the fall of 2019 found that Yang had the highest net satisfaction rate among undecided 2020 general election voters, and a November 2019 College Pulse poll found that Yang had the highest crossover support among college students of any candidate in the 2020 race, with 18% of Republican college students saying they would support Yang over Trump in the general election.

Yang speaks with attendees at the 2019 Iowa Democratic Wing Ding at Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Yang's campaign was known for its heavy reliance on Internet-based campaigning. The campaign was also known for its popularity online, with The New York Times calling Yang "The Internet's Favorite Candidate." His campaign supporters, known informally as the Yang Gang, brought attention to his campaign on Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms, through memes and viral campaigning. Several news outlets called Yang the most surprising candidate of the election cycle, going from relative obscurity to a national contender who outlasted several well-known politicians.

Yang is at least the third American of East Asian descent to run for President of the United States, after Hiram Fong and Patsy Mink. According to BBC, he "is one of the first and most recognizable East Asian-Americans in history to run for president." He has said that he hopes his "campaign can inspire Asian Americans to be engaged in [politics]."

Yang dropped out of the presidential race on February 11, 2020. On March 10, 2020, Yang endorsed Joe Biden.

Fundraising

Yang speaks with attendees at a fundraiser hosted by the Iowa Asian and Latino Coalition at Jasper Winery in Des Moines, Iowa.

On March 11, 2019, Yang announced that he surpassed the fundraising threshold of 65,000 donors, qualifying him to participate in the first round of Democratic primary debates. On June 28, he announced that he reached 130,000 donors, which met the fundraising criterion for the third round of debates.

In the first quarter of 2019, Yang raised $1.7 million, of which more than $250,000 came from "the last four days of the quarter." According to Yang's campaign, "the average donation was $17.92" and "99% of the donations were less than $200." In the second quarter, Yang raised $2.8 million. The campaign stated that 99.6% "of its donors were small-dollar donors [who] gave less than $200." On August 13, 2019, Yang's third-quarter fundraising reached $2.8 million, matching his total second-quarter fundraising. On August 15, he reached 200,000 unique donors. On August 17, Yang announced that among his campaign donors, "the most common jobs are software engineers, teachers, drivers, retail workers and warehouse workers" and the "biggest employer is the US Army." On September 1, he announced that the average donation was $25, and that the campaign had received no corporate political action committee (PAC) money. In the 72 hours after the third debate, Yang's campaign raised $1 million, suggesting that it "is on track to raise significantly more in the third quarter" than in the second quarter, according to Politico.

In the third quarter, Yang's campaign raised $10 million, representing a 257% quarterly increase—the largest growth rate among the fundraising numbers of all candidates. The average donation was around $30, and 99% of the donations were $200 or less.

In the fourth quarter, Yang's campaign raised $16.5 million. During his entire 2020 campaign, he received donations from about 400,000 unique donors, with 75% of donations coming from "small dollar" donors who gave $200 or less.

Supporters and media coverage

Yang's supporters form a crowd at the Liberty and Justice Celebration in Des Moines, Iowa. Yang is visible in the background.

On multiple occasions, Yang's campaign and supporters have criticized media outlets, such as MSNBC and CNN, for their coverage of Yang. Incidents include cases of news outlets excluding Yang from lists of 2020 Democratic candidates. On August 29, 2019, Yang supporters prompted the hashtag #YangMediaBlackout to trend on Twitter after a CNN infographic displaying the results of a poll included candidate Beto O'Rourke but not Yang, even though the poll showed Yang polling three times higher than O'Rourke. Yang supporters also criticized media outlets for providing disproportionately low coverage of Yang, pointing out that according to The New York Times, Yang has received some of the least coverage in cable news among the candidates, even though he was polling better than most of the field.

In early September, Yang's lack of media coverage was reported by several media outlets, including CNN. Axios noted that while Yang polled in the top six of the Democratic primary and was "getting plenty of online attention", he was "being treated by the media like a bottom-tier candidate." Krystal Ball of The Hill observed that there was "a persistent pattern of ignoring Yang's candidacy" among media outlets such as CNN. She further noted that Scott Santens, one of Yang's supporters, "has been keeping track of the apparent slights via Twitter." On October 23, 2019, Santens released an article compiling the mainstream media's exclusions of Yang. In November 2019, Yang's campaign manager dismissed an apology by MSNBC for leaving Yang off an infographic, which according to Santens's compilation was the 15th time in the campaign cycle MSNBC or its related networks had wrongfully excluded Yang. On November 23, 2019, following the MSNBC-hosted November debate in which Yang received the least speaking time and was not called upon for the first 30 minutes of the two-hour debate, Yang publicly rejected a request to appear on MSNBC unless the network would "apologize on air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates'". A Business Insider analysis found that Yang received significantly less speaking time at debates than would be expected given his polling numbers. In late December 2019, Yang ended his boycott of MSNBC, saying he preferred to "speak to as many Americans as possible."

End of campaign

Yang dropped out of the race on February 11, 2020, after a disappointing result in the New Hampshire primary. He announced to his supporters, "while we did not win this election, we are just getting started." Howard Wolfson suggested that he "would make a very interesting candidate" for the mayor of New York City; Yang said, "it's incredibly flattering to be thought of in that role.... We haven't ruled anything out at this point. I will say I'm more attracted to executive roles than legislative ones because I think you can get more done." On March 3, Yang reiterated his interest in the mayorship to BuzzFeed News.

On February 19, Yang joined CNN as a political commentator. On February 22, he said that "Someone needs to pull an Andrew Yang" and drop out of the race, referring to Bernie Sanders' emergence as the front-runner and the remaining candidates competing to position themselves against him. In late February, it was reported that Michael Bloomberg's campaign had reached out to Yang concerning an endorsement. Yang said on CNN that "multiple campaigns have reached out, and it's flattering to be considered for a VP role or any role in someone's campaign," but said that he would be "much more enthusiastic about considering an endorsement" if a candidate made a commitment to the issues he had run on, including job automation and UBI.

On March 5, Yang announced his involvement with the nonprofit organization Humanity Forward. On March 10, the night of the Michigan Democratic primary, he endorsed Joe Biden. He said he understood Sanders supporters' frustration, but that beating Trump in the election was the most important objective. The same day, CNN accidentally called Yang the "Democratic presidential nominee" in a tweet.

Yang hosts a podcast, Yang Speaks, where he discusses national and global issues with guest commentators.

Yang has said that he is interested in running for mayor of New York City in 2021.

On April 29, 2020, Yang announced that he was taking legal action against the New York State Board of Elections after the state election commission voted to cancel its presidential primary. The filing stated: "This unprecedented and unwarranted move infringes the rights of Plaintiffs and all New York State Democratic Party voters, of which there are estimated to be more than six million, as it fundamentally denies them the right to choose our next candidate for the office of President of the United States." In early May, the judge ruled in Yang's favor.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yang, through his organization Humanity Forward, launched The All Americans Movement, which works to help communities affected by racism related to the pandemic.

Initially left out of the list of confirmed speakers for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Yang expressed his dissatisfaction on Twitter stating that he "kind of expected to speak" at the event. Yang's supporters urged the DNC to include him in the speaker lineup, and on August 13, Yang was added to the list. Yang spoke at the DNC on August 20, as the third speaker of the night.

In September 2020, Yang was hired by the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign as a member of the campaign's small business advisory council.

Political positions

Yang speaks with attendees at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum hosted by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Many of Yang's political views are based around an idea he has called "Human-Centered Capitalism." In April 2018, he published The War on Normal People, which focused largely on his domestic policies. On Yang's campaign website, more than 160 policies are listed. Central to his 2020 campaign was the proposal of a monthly $1,000 "Freedom Dividend" to all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 (a form of universal basic income, or UBI) in response to worker displacement driven by technological automation. According to Yang, the Freedom Dividend's benefits include "healthier people, less stressed-out people, better-educated people, stronger communities, more volunteerism, [and] more civic participation. There's zero bureaucracy associated with it [because there is no] need to verify whether [people's] circumstances change." Citing forecasting by the Roosevelt Institute, Yang has said that the dividend "would create up to 2 million new jobs in [American] communities." However, the policies the Roosevelt Institute studied differ from Yang's Freedom Dividend in some significant ways. Yang has said that the dividend would be opt-in. For those receiving welfare benefits, opting in to the dividend would replace some benefits while stacking with others.^[160] Yang has said that he became a UBI advocate after reading American futurist Martin Ford's book Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, which deals with the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on the job market and economy. He believes UBI is a more viable policy than job retraining programs, citing studies showing that job retraining of displaced manufacturing workers in the Midwest had success rates of 0–15%.

Yang has proposed a value-added tax to finance the dividend and to combat tax avoidance by large American corporations. He argues that automation-driven job displacement was the main reason Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, saying that based on data, "There's a straight line up between the adoption of industrial robots in a community and the movement towards Donald Trump." Yang's campaign slogan "Humanity First" called attention to his belief that automation of many key industries is one of the biggest threats facing the American workforce. On healthcare, he has said that while he supports "the spirit of Medicare for All", he "would keep the option of private insurance", with the ultimate goal to "demonstrate to the American people that private insurance is not what [they] need" and that Medicare for All is "superior to [their] current insurance." But his 2020 policy proposal did not commit to Medicare for All or contain a public option, focusing instead on reducing costs and eventually expanding coverage.

Yang speaking with the media at the 2019 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa

Yang supports the implementation of "democracy dollars": $100 every year, "use it or lose it", for citizens to give to candidates. The policy aims to drown out corporate money resulting from political lobbying and Citizens United v. FEC. He supports ending partisan gerrymandering, ranked-choice voting, and lowering the national voting age to 16. Yang supports legalizing cannabis and decriminalizing opioids (including heroin) for personal use, but does not support legalizing or decriminalizing cocaine. He has cited Portugal's drug policy, which he believes to be similar, as evidence of the effectiveness of his policy. Yang has also advocated for all Police Officers to be trained in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, at least to the rank of purple belt. Yang supports a carbon tax and bringing the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as investing in thorium-based nuclear power. He supports legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and has pledged to appoint pro-choice judges. Yang has proposed creating a department focused on regulating the addictive nature of media, appointing a White House psychologist, making Election Day a national holiday, and, to stem corruption, increasing the salaries of federal regulators but limiting their private work after they leave public service. He supports legalizing online poker in all 50 states, the "first legitimate candidate" to do so according to Card Player.

Yang makes a speech at "Youth Voice: The Iowa Caucus", a presidential candidate forum hosted in September 2019 at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa.

Yang has said that Israel "is a very, very important ally." In regard to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Yang wants a "two-state solution that allows both the Israeli and Palestinian people to have sovereign land and self-determination." He has called Iran a "destabilizing force in the region", but supported Obama's Iran nuclear deal. Yang has criticized China's treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority and China's "more aggressive stance throughout the region, whether towards Hong Kong, Taiwan, or in the South China Sea." He also voiced support for the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests. At the same time, Yang has warned against entering a "New Cold War" with China and stated: "We're not going to be able to address global threats like climate change and even collaborate on artificial intelligence if we don't have a certain level of cooperation between the US and China."

Yang has opposed U.S. military support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and has backed a more aggressive policy toward Russia, saying, "Russia is our biggest geopolitical threat, because they've been hacking our democracy successfully." Yang wrote to the Council on Foreign Relations: "Russian aggression is a destabilizing force, and we must work with our allies to project a strong and unified face against Russian expansionism. [...] we need to expand sanctions against Russia, and Putin and members of his government specifically through the Global Magnitsky Act, in order to pressure the country to play by international rules." Yang has said that the U.S. has tampered with foreign elections—just like Russia has—and that Russian interference "has to stop, and if it does not stop we will take this as an act of hostility against the American people."

Yang meeting with President Obama at the White House in 2012

Recognition

In 2012, Yang was named a "Champion of Change" by the Obama administration. In 2015, he was named a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship." In 2020, Yang received the 2021 Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Public Service, awarded by the Vilcek Foundation. Jan Vilcek, Chairman and CEO of the Vilcek Foundation, said, "The Vilcek Prize for Excellence... is a way for us to honor the work of individuals... whose experience and career contributions nonetheless exemplify or speak to our foundation’s core mission and vision—to celebrate the multitude of immigrant experiences and how immigration enriches culture, society, and innovation in the United States.”

Personal life

Yang's wife, Evelyn Yang, speaking at an event during his presidential campaign

Andrew Yang has been married to Evelyn Yang (née Lu) since 2011, and they have two sons. Yang has spoken about his older son who has autism, saying, "I'm very proud of my son and anyone who has someone on the spectrum in their family feels the exact same way."

Yang attends the Reformed Church of New Paltz with his family and has identified Mark E. Mast as their pastor. He considers himself spiritual. When speaking about his faith in an interfaith town hall at Wartburg College, Yang said he "wouldn't be the first to say that [his] own journey is still in progress."

In an interview with The Hill, Yang said that Theodore Roosevelt is his favorite president and that he is the godfather of Roosevelt's great-granddaughter.

Publications

Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America. HarperCollins. February 4, 2014. ISBN 978-0062292049.

The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future. Hachette Books. April 3, 2018. ISBN 978-0316414241.

Basic income in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_in_the_United_States 

Basic income and negative income tax, which is a related welfare system, has been debated in the United States since the 1960s, and to a smaller extent also before that. During the 1960s and 1970s a number of experiments with negative income tax were conducted in United States and Canada. In the 1970s another and somewhat related welfare system was introduced instead, the Earned Income Tax Credit. The next big development in the history of basic income in the United States came in 1982, when the Alaska Permanent Fund was established. It has delivered some kind of basic income, financed from the state's oil and gas revenues, ever since.

Older history (from Paine and Spence to 1900)

Arguably the first to propose a system with great similarities to a national basic income in the United States was Thomas Paine, in Agrarian Justice, 1796/1797. His idea was that a few "basic incomes" to young people, in their 20s, financed by tax on heritage, was highly needed and also a matter of justice. Shortly after that, in 1797, Thomas Spence outlined a complete basic income proposal.

1900-1960

In the first half of the 20th century various people in the United States advocated some kind of basic income. There were for example the Louisiana governor Huey Long who called it "Share Our Wealth" and also some followers of Henry George.

1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s and the 1970s the debate around, and support for, basic income and the related system negative income tax, rose substantially. This debate and interest was highly linked to general debate on poverty and how to deal with it. In 1968, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce in that year a system of income guarantees and supplements. Milton Friedman endorsed the negative income tax in 1962 and again in 1980, and he connected his support for the negative income tax to support for basic income in an interview with Eduardo Suplicy in 2000.

Martin Luther King, a famous civil rights activist and politician, also gave his support for the idea in his book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, published in 1967. In 1969, Richard Nixon proposed a "Family Assistance Program" which resembled guaranteed income, in that benefits did not rapidly taper with additional earnings by the beneficiaries. Nixon's proposal only applied to families, but extended previous welfare by benefiting more than those without a 'father'. Other advocates from the 1960s and 1970s include Senator George McGovern who called for a 'demogrant' that was similar to a basic income.

From 1968 to 1982, the US and Canadian governments conducted a total of five negative income tax experiments. They were the first major social science experiments in the world. The first experiment was the New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment, proposed by MIT Economics graduate student Heather Ross in 1967 in a proposal to the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. The four experiments were in:

1. The New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment: Trenton, Passaic, Paterson, and Jersey City, New Jersey with Scranton, Pennsylvania added to increase the number of white families, 1968–1972 (1357 families)
2. The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment: Rural areas in Iowa and North Carolina, 1969–1973 (809 families)
3. Gary, Indiana, 1971–1974 (1800 families)
4. Seattle (SIME) and Denver (DIME), 1971–1982 (4800 families)
5. Manitoba, Canada ("Mincome"), 1974-1979

In general they found that workers would decrease labor supply (employment) by two to four weeks per year because of the guarantee of income equal to the poverty threshold.

The 1980s, 1990s and early 2000

The Permanent Fund of Alaska

1975 photo of Jay Hammond, the former governor of Alaska who is regarded as "the man behind" the foundation of the Permanent Fund of Alaska.

The Alaska Permanent Fund is often mentioned as one of the few existing basic income systems in the world. Since 1982, the Fund has paid a partial basic income to all (permanent) residents averaging approximately $1,600 annually per resident (adjusted to 2019 dollars) from the state's oil production revenues. A prominent figure in the history of the fund is Jay Hammond. He was the Republican governor of Alaska in the 1970s and as such he was concerned that the huge wealth generated by oil mining in Prudhoe Bay, the largest oilfield in North America, would only benefit the current population of the state. Therefore, he suggested setting up a fund to ensure that this wealth would be preserved, through investment of part of the revenue from oil.

2010-2018

The Green Party of the United States in its 2010 platform advocated for a universal basic income to "every adult regardless of health, employment, or marital status, in order to minimize government bureaucracy and intrusiveness into people's lives."

The debate about basic income, according to Guy Standing, has gone in two directions in the United States in recent years. On the one hand is the introduction of basic income as an alternative to existing social policies, paid from direct taxation, and on the other hand is a discussion about capital funds with basic income-style dividends.

In July 2017, Hawaii State Rep. Chris Lee published a bill to investigate basic income for his state.

American Democratic Politician John Moser ran on a Universal Citizens Dividend as the core focus of his 2018 Congressional campaign.

Andrew Yang and the emergency-basic income of 2020

Andrew Yang was a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. He was running against more well-known candidates such as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to get the Democratic Party-ticket to run against the Republican candidate in 2020. His flagship proposal was a basic income, which he labels "Freedom Dividend" of 1000 dollar per month to each American citizen over the age of 18. He also had several other proposals, regarding democracy, health and medicine, international affairs and so on, but the focus is on the basic income. That, in turn, is a proposal which he outlines with the background of the fourth industrial revolution. In other words, the development with automation and artificial intelligence, and how these factors change the job market. According to Yang, the Freedom Dividend's benefits include "healthier people, less stressed-out people, better-educated people, stronger communities, more volunteerism, [and] more civic participation. There's zero bureaucracy associated with it [because there is no] need to verify whether [people's] circumstances change."

Yang argues that automation-driven job displacement was the main reason Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, saying that based on data, "There's a straight line up between the adoption of industrial robots in a community and the movement towards Donald Trump." Yang has said that he became a UBI advocate after reading American futurist Martin Ford's book Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, which deals with the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on the job market and economy. He believes UBI is a more viable policy than job retraining programs, citing studies that job retraining of displaced manufacturing workers in the Midwest had success rates of 0–15%.

On March 5, 2020 Andrew Yang started the Humanity Forward movement, a non-profit with the goal of introducing the core ideas that Yang ran on during his 2020 presidential campaign such as Universal Basic Income, human-centered capitalism, and data as a property right. Andrew Yang has already received three million dollars in donations for use in this organization. Humanity Forward will endorse and provide resources to political candidates who champion Universal Basic Income, human-centered capitalism and similar policies. HF will help launch and support projects to display the power and practicality of UBI in real life. Yang intends to push these ideas to the mainstream through podcasts, traditional media, and high-impact events.