Democratic candidate Andrew Yang says that he lived the American Dream as the child of immigrants, but he believes the picture of optimism is "dying by the numbers" for most families in the United States.

"I'm a numbers guy," Yang said in an interview airing Thursday on "CBS This Morning." "The numbers say that you have a 50/50 chance of doing better than your parents if you were born in the '90s. And that chance was 93% if you were born in the '40s or '50s. So the American Dream is dying by the numbers. And Americans know it."

Yang, 44, made his millions running a test prep company, and is the only non-politician who made the cut to be on next week's presidential debate stage. His candidacy remains a longshot, as he polls between 2% and 4% nationwide after initially taking off with a plan to give all American adults $1,000 a month in hopes of spurring the economy.

Yang also said he's rejecting the thought of running a third-party race, should his campaign fizzle out.

"My job is to help get Donald Trump out of office," he said. "And I would do nothing that would increase the odds of him sticking around. And I think a third-party candidacy would do just that."

Yang told CBS he's not surprised by making the debate and says that while he's been advised to paint a more optimistic picture of the nation, it's wrong to think Americans don't want to hear hard truths.

He said he blames the country's economic woes on the growth of artificial intelligence and automation.

"We automated away four million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And if those states sound familiar, those are all the swing states that Donald Trump needed to win and did win."