NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — During a CNBC interview on Tuesday, Forward Party co-founder Andrew Yang advocated for a fundamental shift in fiscal policy away from human payroll taxes toward direct levies on artificial intelligence. Yang expressed concern that current federal tax incentives promote automation that could threaten millions of jobs, calling on policymakers to balance fiscal responsibilities between human workers and algorithmic systems.
In the course of the discussion, Yang highlighted that existing tax laws impose substantial payroll taxes and healthcare costs on companies hiring human employees. Meanwhile, firms deploying artificial intelligence models do not face comparable labor-related taxes, effectively reducing operating expenses for automated alternatives. Noble Mobile CEO emphasized that the current legal environment inadvertently encourages corporate management to accelerate replacing human labor with automation across key industries.
Andrew Yang Declares We Are Supporting a Technology That Will Displace Millions
Yang proposed an intentional policy shift to reallocate fiscal burdens from traditional payroll taxes to automated compute tokens and AI-driven revenue models. Citing recent statements by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who previously proposed a 3 percent revenue tax on generative AI services, Yang argued that taxing interactions with automated software presents a practical method for restoring market equilibrium. He emphasized that the revenue collected through an AI tax should be directly redistributed to citizens as universal cash dividends, rather than funneled into outdated retraining programs.
This debate unfolds amid growing economic concerns about automation’s impact on the U.S. labor market. A recent joint survey from CNBC and Generation Lab found that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 believe artificial intelligence will harm their long-term career prospects. Additionally, macroeconomic analysis by Bridgewater Associates executives estimates that automation could disrupt about 18 percent of all domestic jobs within the next five years.
Rapid Industry Changes Displace Customer Service Workers
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that customer service departments nationwide currently employ approximately 2.9 million workers, making it one of the first sectors experiencing swift automation-driven restructuring. Yang warned that government-funded retraining initiatives have historically failed to transition displaced workers into sustainable careers. He pointed to past retraining efforts for coal miners and warehouse staff as evidence that direct financial support offers more stability than federal job programs.
Yang emphasized that federal legislation must be reformed to ensure human workers can remain competitive as software agents become more advanced. Since current tax policies subsidize a technology likely to replace millions of jobs, he stressed the importance of establishing neutral tax frameworks to navigate the ongoing digital transformation of the U.S. workforce. Legislative proposals to address automation-related disruptions are currently under review by policy experts ahead of future congressional sessions.