There are a lot of people running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. The total number of candidates could be even greater than the massive GOP field in 2016. With so many candidates delivering similar pitches, it can be difficult to determine what truly differentiates one contender from another. That cannot be said for Andrew Yang.

Even a periphery glance at his website will show you Andrew Yang’s top priority: “The Freedom Dividend.” More commonly known as universal basic income (UBI), Andrew is proposing a guaranteed income of $1,000 per month for every American citizen over the age of 18. He argues that his “Freedom Dividend” “would permanently grow the economy by 12.56 to 13.10 percent—or about $2.5 trillion by 2025—and it would increase the labor force by 4.5 to 4.7 million people.”

Many progressives argue that UBI is a “Silicon Valley scam” designed to uphold the evils of capitalism and dismantle the social safety net without having to improve wages or create good-paying jobs. While Andrew admits that many wealthy individuals and conservatives support UBI for the wrong reasons, he is quick to point that that Martin Luther King, Jr. supported UBI. King wrote in Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community: “The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”

Andrew’s vision of UBI stands out because he is simultaneously calling for strengthening the social safety net and cutting not social programs but rather wasteful spending in the military budget, which is denounced by libertarian conservatives. His list of over 70 policies includes progressive priorities like Medicare for All and paid family leave and also lesser-heard of ideas like free marriage counseling for all and local journalism funding.

Andrew Yang joined us on the podcast to discuss UBI, immigration, labor rights, the Green New Deal, healthcare, democratic socialism, eliminating student debt, reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans, and more. Listen on iTunes or in your browser below: