NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — Andrew Yang, a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and co-founder of the Forward Party, intensified his call for a national AI tax on Tuesday. He warned that current federal fiscal policies distort the labor landscape. During an appearance on CNBC, Yang, CEO of Noble Mobile, explained that heavy payroll taxes on employers discourage hiring humans. He argued that the existing tax system effectively subsidizes automation by making software deployment cheaper than employing human workers.
In the interview, Yang highlighted that current tax laws impose substantial payroll taxes and healthcare costs on companies that hire workers. Meanwhile, firms investing in artificial intelligence do not face similar labor taxes. This creates a financial incentive to replace human labor with automated systems. Yang stressed that the legal framework implicitly promotes accelerating automation across vital sectors of the economy.
Andrew Yang States We Are Supporting a Technology That Will Displace Millions
Yang suggested a shift in policy to move fiscal burdens away from human payroll taxes toward automated compute tokens and AI revenue models. He referenced recent comments by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who proposed a 3 percent revenue tax on AI systems. Yang believes taxing interactions with automated software offers a practical way to balance market forces. He also emphasized that revenue from such a tax should go directly to citizens as universal cash dividends, rather than funding retraining programs.
This debate unfolds as economic concerns about automation grow in the U.S. A CNBC and Generation Lab joint survey found that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 believe AI could harm their long-term job prospects. Additionally, a report from Bridgewater Associates estimates that automation might threaten about 18 percent of all U.S. jobs within five years.
Customer Service Workers Face Rapid Industry Changes
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately 2.9 million customer service workers are employed nationwide. This sector is among the first to undergo fast automation. Yang warned that government retraining programs have often failed to help displaced workers find stable new careers. He pointed to past initiatives aimed at coal miners and warehouse workers as evidence that direct financial aid is more effective than federal job programs.
Yang concluded that Congress must reform tax laws to keep human workers competitive with advanced software agents. Since current tax structures subsidize technologies that threaten to replace millions of jobs, he stressed that neutral tax policies are essential for managing the ongoing digital shift. Policy experts are currently reviewing legislative options to address automation’s impact on jobs in upcoming congressional sessions.