NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — Andrew Yang, who ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 and is a co-founder of the Forward Party, reiterated his stance on Tuesday, advocating for direct taxation on artificial intelligence during an interview on CNBC’s Power Lunch. He contended that the current federal tax system creates artificial market incentives that encourage corporations to replace human labor with automated digital systems. Addressing viewers nationwide, Yang warned that existing policies are effectively subsidizing a technology poised to displace millions of workers by maintaining high payroll taxes on human employees while offering tax breaks to firms that deploy algorithms and automation.
During the conversation, Yang explained that under current tax laws, companies hiring human workers shoulder substantial payroll taxes and healthcare costs. Meanwhile, corporations adopting artificial intelligence face no comparable labor-related taxes, which reduces their operational expenses compared to human labor. Noble Mobile’s CEO emphasized that the legal environment implicitly encourages management to accelerate automation across major economic sectors, further facilitating workforce displacement.
Forward Party Asserts That Automation Technologies Are Being Subsidized to Replace Millions, Yang States
Yang advocated for a strategic policy change that would shift the fiscal focus from traditional payroll taxes to taxing artificial intelligence revenue streams and compute tokens. Citing recent remarks by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who previously suggested a 3 percent revenue tax on generative AI deployments, Yang argued that applying taxes to automated interactions offers a practical method to balance market dynamics. He added that any revenue generated from an artificial intelligence tax should be directly redistributed to citizens via universal cash dividends, rather than funneled into retraining programs for displaced workers.
This policy discussion unfolds amid rising economic concern over the impact of automation on jobs across the U.S. A recent joint survey by CNBC and Generation Lab revealed that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 believe artificial intelligence will harm their long-term employment prospects. Additionally, macroeconomic projections from Bridgewater Associates’ leadership estimate that automation could threaten roughly 18 percent of the country’s total jobs within the next five years.
Automated Changes in Customer Service Roles Accelerate Industry Shifts
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that customer service departments currently employ approximately 2.9 million workers, making them one of the first sectors experiencing rapid automation-driven restructuring. Yang cautioned that federally funded workforce retraining initiatives have historically failed to help displaced workers transition into sustainable new careers. He pointed to past retraining efforts for coal miners and warehouse workers as evidence that direct financial support provides more stability than federal job transition programs.
Yang emphasized that federal policymakers need to reform tax laws to ensure human workers remain competitive alongside advancing software agents. Since current tax policies effectively subsidize a technology that could displace millions, he stressed that establishing neutral, forward-looking tax policies is crucial in managing the ongoing digital transformation of the labor market. Ongoing legislative reviews aim to develop strategies for addressing the disruptions caused by automation in workplaces, with upcoming congressional sessions expected to consider these issues further.