Former presidential candidate Tech founder Andrew Yang officially announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City on Wednesday.
“I moved to New York City 25 years ago,” he said in a promotional video released Wednesday. “I came of age, fell in love and became a father here. Seeing our city with so much pain breaks my heart. ”
In a video released on Twitter, he set a minimum income guarantee agenda, brought universal high-speed Internet, launched “People’s Bank” and “cleverly” reopened New York City from the pandemic.
It focuses on the nightlife of New York City. On his campaign website, Yang vows to take a permanent outdoor meal, “cocktails to go” and other temporary measures during the epidemic.
Yang’s basic income program begins with giving $ 2,000 a year to half a million New Yorkers in extreme poverty. Participants receive cash through monthly transfers to a bank account opened in their name at the newly created “People’s Bank”.
His highly detailed approach focuses on reviving the city’s small businesses. He pledged to start 15,000 small businesses by 2022 and also bought outdoor heaters in bulk, and then gave them extraordinary ideas such as selling them to city restaurants that dine outdoors in winter weather.
He suggested that the city invest in Sinch Market, a Brooklyn startup that brings small businesses together on an online platform, whose tagline is “Shopping Brooklyn Not Bezo”. Yang, who has two children in a public school in the city, said he wants to subsidize broadband for schools, expand the city’s universal preschool program and reform the school system admission process.
“Schools can not recover without being open every day and teaching children to be safe,” he said. Yang filed a paperwork for the city last month to explore the run.
He was joined by more than two dozen people running for the seat, including Ray McGuire, former vice chairman of Citigroup Inc.; Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, City Comptroller Scott Stringer and former U.S. Housing Secretary Shawn Donovan.
Incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio was prevented from re-enforcing the term limits. Some early polling shows that Yang will start as one of the frontrunners in the race. The next mayor of New York City will face many economic and health challenges posed by the pandemic. More than 25,000 New Yorkers have died since Covid-19.
State Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli said the city faces a $ 3.8 billion deficit for the budget year beginning in July. As of March, New York City had recovered only 37% of the 944,100 jobs lost in April, and authorities imposed a financial shutdown on unwanted businesses.
Born in Shenkot, New York to immigrants from Taiwan, Yang worked for several startups before becoming chief executive officer of the Manhattan Test-Preparation Company, which was sold to Kaplan Inc. in 2009.
With a tax on tech companies, Yang built his presidential campaign on a promise of $ 1,000 a month in universal basic income per adult. He finalized his bid in February 2020, but more runs than expected in the Democratic primaries brought him to a national stage, which he used to campaign for President-elect Joe Biden and Democrats who took control of the Senate.
