NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — On Tuesday, Andrew Yang, a former Democratic candidate for 2020 and co-founder of the Forward Party, reiterated his call for a nationwide AI tax, warning that current fiscal policies distort the labor market. During his appearance on CNBC, the CEO of Noble Mobile explained that substantial employer payroll taxes discourage hiring of human workers. Yang contended that the tax system essentially favors corporate automation by excluding software deployment from similar labor costs.
He pointed out that under existing tax laws, companies pay high payroll taxes and healthcare expenses for employees when hiring human staff. Meanwhile, firms implementing AI models do not face comparable labor taxes, which effectively reduces their operational expenses compared to manual staffing. The Noble Mobile chief emphasized that the current legal setup implicitly promotes corporate management to speed up replacing human labor with automation across key sectors of the economy.
Yang: We’re Funding a Technology That Will Displace Millions
He proposed a strategic policy shift that would reallocate fiscal responsibilities from traditional payroll taxes to automated compute tokens and AI-based revenue streams. Citing recent remarks from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who suggested a 3 percent revenue tax on generative AI deployments, Yang argued that taxing interactions with automated software offers a practical way to balance market dynamics. He emphasized that the proceeds from such an AI tax should be given directly to citizens as universal cash dividends, rather than diverted into retraining programs.
This policy debate is set against a backdrop of rising economic worries about automation’s impact on employment across the U.S. A recent joint survey by CNBC and Generation Lab found that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 expect AI to harm their long-term career prospects. Additionally, macroeconomic forecasts by Bridgewater Associates’ executives project that automation could threaten approximately 18 percent of domestic jobs within the next five years.
Rapid Industry Changes Displace Customer Service Workers
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that roughly 2.9 million workers are employed in customer service roles nationwide, marking one of the earliest sectors experiencing swift automation-driven restructuring. Yang warned that government-funded retraining initiatives have historically failed to help displaced industrial and administrative workers transition into sustainable new careers. He pointed to past efforts aimed at retraining coal miners and warehouse workers as evidence that direct financial support yields more stability than federal job programs.
Yang concluded by emphasizing the need for federal lawmakers to overhaul tax laws to ensure human workers can stay competitive alongside rapidly advancing software agents. Given that current tax policies subsidize technology capable of replacing millions of jobs, he stressed that establishing neutral tax policies is crucial for managing the ongoing digital transformation of the workforce. Ongoing review of legislative proposals continues as policy experts prepare for upcoming congressional sessions addressing automation’s impact on employment.