Andrew Yang Provides More Stimulus Relief Than Trump

Former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have partnered to provide immediate monetary relief to American citizens. 

Yang announced the initiative on CNN; “Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square has donated 5 million dollars to my organization that we’re then going to turn around and give away to struggling Americans. We’re going to give $250 dollars to 20,000 Americans.”

Humanity Forward was born of Yang’s presidential campaign, a campaign in which Yang proposed the Freedom Dividend, or universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 per month to all U.S. citizens 18 years and older.

Though Yang’s proposal was initially founded on the premise that technology “automation would replace human workers faster than they could be retrained,” the need for UBI has come earlier than Yang predicted as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“The suffering unfortunately is all too real. We’re getting inundated with requests for help at my organization Humanity for Help….our federal government has to pass enormous stimulus measures to keep us from teetering into an enormous great depression,” explained Yang on CNN.

Politicians from Trump’s administration have publicly supported the initiative to provide Americans with immediate economic relief. White House Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was among the Republicans who proposed that direct payments be a part of the first stimulus package, which ultimately arrived in the form of $1,200 checks through the CARES Act.

As the coronavirus poses a continued threat to American lives, it is becoming clear that the economy won’t be making the V-shape return many were hoping for. The House has passed the HEROES Act, a second stimulus package in an effort to provide more immediate relief. But, due to its controversial nature and Republican opposition, any relief it may provide will be far from immediate. 

Yang, on the other hand, is providing far more emotionally intelligent solutions. Rather than wait for the House and Senate to set aside their partisan agendas for the good of the American people, Yang is taking matters into his own hands, and partnering with a number of organizations to place checks into the hands of struggling Americans. Yang and Dorsey’s partnership will provide $250 in aid to 20,000 individuals, in addition to the 2 million dollars of relief Yang’s organization has already provided. 

Not only is he meeting the needs of the American people, but he’s thinking long term; “We need a new Marshall Plan scale initiative to get millions of Americans back into the workforce, to rebuild the country. We should be hiring health care workers, people to literally rebuild the country in the form of a giant infrastructure plan, a mental health initiative, anything we can do to get people back to work because we’re in a deep, dark hole that will not resolve itself, and that should be led by the federal government.” he explained on CNN.