Democratic presidential hopeful and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang gestures during the third Democratic primary debate in Houston, Texas on September 12, 2019. (Photo byRobyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) - Democrat presidential contender Andrew Yang plugged his $1,000 a month "Freedom Dividend" Thursday on "Late Night With Seth Meyers."

He said the money, for rich and poor alike, will improve our "way of life."

"First, it's not my idea at all," Yang admitted:

It's been with United States since our founding. Thomas Payne was for it. Martin Luther King was for it. And one state has had a dividend for almost 40 years where everyone in Alaska gets between $1,000 and $2,000 a year. (A few Alaskans in the audience cheered.) And so what they're doing for Alaska with oil money, we can do for everyone in the country with technology money. Because right now we're in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in the history of our country. And it's what got Donald Trump elected. The fact we blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, all the swing states that he needed to win. So we need to take the bounty of 21st century economy and start returning it to people. And though everyone associates me with 1,000 bucks a month, it's really about what the money would do for us. It's going to make us stronger, healthier, mentally healthier. It's going to improve our relationships and our way of life.

Yang said his plan would cost a "bit less" than $3 trillion, and he'd pay for it by taxing companies such as Amazon. "And they have literally paid zero in taxes, less than everyone here in this studio so, of course you're going to struggle to pay for things if you have $1 trillion companies paying zero.

"If we give ourselves our tiny fair share of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad, every robot truck mile, we can easily afford $1,000 for every American," he said.

The Freedom Dividend would go to the wealthy as well as the poor, to ensure "universal popularity."

"Well, if you look at the Alaskan experience, everyone's getting the oil dividends from the poorest Alaskan to the richest," Yang said.



"And because of that, it's universally popular. There's no stigma attached to it. It's not like I'm paying for it, you're getting it. You don't need to monitor people's circumstances; there are no incentives to say, I'm doing worse than I really am; and so because of that, in a deep red conservative state with a Republican governor, the petroleum dividend is wildly popular. And so if we make this a true right of citizenship, it will be popular nationwide."

Yang, who jokes that he's an "Asian who likes math," says he would not use Gross Domestic Product, as currently configured, to measure the nation's economic health:

"Where GDP's at record highs right now, also at record highs -- stress, financial insecurity, even suicides and drug overdoses." He also noted that life expectancy is declining.

"So you have to ask yourself, are the measurements wrong, or are we actually prioritizing this production number over the lifespan of our people? And to me it's obvious the numbers are wrong. And you need to update them to include things like our health and well-being. Our mental health and freedom from substance abuse but also things like clean air, and clean water. How our kids are doing -- the real measurements for American success."

In keeping with his fondness for numbers, Yang said he would do away with the traditional, constitutionally mandated State of the Union address and give a PowerPoint presentation instead.

"So my plan is to take the American scorecard with the real numbers of how we're doing and then present them to you, the American people, in a PowerPoint deck every year at the State of the Union. I'll be the first president to use PowerPoint.

Yang said the annual presidential address to Congress has become "bizarrely unwatchable."