CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - One Democratic presidential candidate spoke with local voters in the Lowcountry on Thursday.
Andrew Yang met with voters in Colleton County first before making his way to the Charleston area in West Ashley.
The meeting in West Ashley was on a smaller scale than one would imagine.
Kellan and Brianna Beam opened up their home and Yang met with a couple dozen voters in their living room.
"This is an honor for us as well to have the personal, intimate setting, as well as our friends who are undecided or just may not know anything about him, to have that opportunity to sit at our dining room table and have a conversation with him," Brianna said.
"I think it's really the amount of facts that he brings to the table," Kellan said. "And right facts... I think that's extremely important."
Yang wanted a more personal way to way to explain how the issues, the United States is facing, impacts local people specifically.
“The most common job in South Carolina is retail clerk,” Yang said. “The average retail clerk is a 39-year-old woman who’s making between $9 and $10 an hour. So if 30 percent of stores and malls are closing in South Carolina, what’s her next job going to be?”
He also touched on how manufacturing jobs are going away.
“Right now, manufacturing is being transformed by automation, technology, robots and machines,” Yang said. “The five most common employment sectors in the United States, and also South Carolina, are administrative and clerical (which includes call centers), retail, food services and food prep, truck driving and transportation, and manufacturing. Those five job sectors are half of all American jobs. They’re more than half of the jobs here in South Carolina. They are all getting reduced very, very quickly. By the time you have autonomous cars and trucks, it’s going to be disastrous for many communities.”
His answer starts by giving all U.S. citizens over the age of 18, $1,000 per month as a form of basic income. He believes it's doable if we start making giant companies, like Amazon, pay taxes.
“It seems dramatic at first, but when you start digging into what’s happening... Again, 20 billion going out, zero back... This is the way to make the economy work for us, the people of this country,” he said.
If you’d like to learn more about Yang’s policies and platform, go here:https://www.yang2020.com/policies/
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