Good jobs are disappearing. New technologies like robots and AI have been great for business, but are on pace to displace millions of American workers. The American workforce is in a more fragile situation than many people and policymakers realize. In the next twelve years alone, a third of all American workers are at risk of permanently losing their jobs, setting the stage for a crisis far worse than the Great Depression. If we want a bright future, we have to do something we’ve never done before—and we have to do it now.
In The War on Normal People, Andrew imagines a different future—one in which people are still able to prosper and seek fulfillment through the automation wave. At the center of this vision is Universal Basic Income, a form of social security that provides every American adult with a monthly $1,000 check, no strings attached; it’s an idea rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Andrew makes the case for UBI as an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one that puts people first.
About Andrew Yang '96
Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur and author. In 2011 he founded Venture for America, a national entrepreneurship fellowship, and spent the last 6 years helping to create more than 2,500 jobs in cities like Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. When Andrew realized that new technologies like artificial intelligence and automation threatened to eliminate one-third of all American jobs, he set out to articulate the urgency of this threat, and to propose a path towards stability and abundance. In The War on Normal People (April 2018), he details the mounting crisis and makes the case for a Universal Basic Income: $1,000 a month for every American adult, no strings attached.