NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — Andrew Yang, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and co-founder of the Forward Party, reiterated his advocacy for a national AI tax on Tuesday, warning that current fiscal policies are distorting the labor market. Speaking on CNBC, the CEO of Noble Mobile explained that significant employer payroll taxes discourage hiring human workers. Yang contended that the existing tax system effectively subsidizes corporate automation, as software deployment costs are exempt from corresponding labor taxes.
During the interview, Yang highlighted that under present tax laws, companies bear substantial payroll and employee healthcare expenses when employing human staff. Meanwhile, businesses implementing artificial intelligence face no comparable labor taxes, which reduces their operational costs compared to human labor. The Noble Mobile CEO emphasized that the legal environment implicitly encourages firms to accelerate replacing workers with automation across key sectors of the economy.
Andrew Yang Declares We Are Subsidizing a Technology Set to Replace Millions
Yang suggested a strategic policy change that would shift fiscal responsibilities away from traditional payroll taxes toward automated compute tokens and AI-based revenue streams. Referencing recent remarks by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who previously proposed a 3 percent revenue tax on generative AI deployments, Yang argued that taxing interactions with automated software offers a practical means to balance market dynamics. He also stated that income from such an AI tax should be redistributed directly to citizens as universal cash dividends instead of being funneled into retraining programs.
This policy debate unfolds amid rising economic concerns over workplace automation in the U.S. A recent joint survey by CNBC and Generation Lab revealed that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 believe AI will have a negative impact on their long-term career prospects. Additionally, macroeconomic forecasts from Bridgewater Associates’ executives project that automated platforms could threaten around 18 percent of the country’s total employment in the next five years.
Rapid Industry Changes Displace Customer Service Workers
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately 2.9 million workers are employed in customer service roles nationwide, marking one of the first sectors experiencing swift automation shifts. Yang warned that federal workforce retraining efforts have historically failed to transition displaced industrial and administrative employees into stable new careers. He cited past initiatives aimed at coal miners and warehouse staff as evidence that direct financial support tends to yield better stability than government job programs.
Yang concluded by urging lawmakers to reform tax laws to ensure human workers can remain competitive against rapidly evolving software agents. As current tax structures subsidize technologies poised to eliminate millions of jobs, he stressed the importance of neutral tax policies to manage the ongoing digital transformation in the nation’s labor landscape. Experts continue to evaluate legislative options aimed at addressing automation-driven disruptions during upcoming congressional sessions.