“And that number has a big ‘up arrow’ attached to it and then when we put this money into Americans’ hands where does the money go? It goes right back into the local economy to car repairs and little league sign-ups and daycare expenses—this is a trickle-up economy,” Yang added in the CNN segment called “Democrats vs. The Economy.”
Yang’s “trickle-up” economic platform has caught on among Democratic voters as he has flipped the long-held Republican Party concept of creating more jobs in a way critics say comes at the expense of workers’ happiness and well-being. Speaking at a CNN Town Hall in April, Yang said, “We have to instead think about how we can make Americans prosperous through this time. The goal should not be to save jobs. The goal should be to make our lives better.”
Yang followed up those comments in an April PBS News Hour segment in which he again targeted Silicon Valley companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google which are replacing humans with AI while simultaneously paying few, if any, taxes. Yang has previously touted how a value-added tax (VAT) on these Silicon Valley companies would not be “regressive” and would instead help increase the buying power of the bottom 90 percent of Americans – the same people whose data is collected and sold by such tech giants.
“The economy needs to work for everyone,” Yang added.
