Yang enters mayor race, vows checks

Andrew Yang is entering the mayor’s race, his campaign said Wednesday, betting that the same concept of universal basic income that helped make him a stronger-than-expected candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential contest will win over New York City voters.

In a slick video announcing his run, the entrepreneur (photo) touts his Big Apple creds — which have come under question in recent days — and talks about his signature policy proposal.

“We need to realize Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a guaranteed minimum income and get cash into the hands of people who need it most,” he says in a voice-over during shots of city streets.

He wants to give the poorest half million New Yorkers $2,000 to $5,000 a year, a sum to “be grown over time as it receives more funding from public and philanthropic organizations,” according to a memo shared with reporters. Yang would devote $1 billion a year to the checks, which would go to New Yorkers “regardless of their immigration status or life experience (i.e., past experience with incarceration).”

The funds would be distributed through a new “People’s Bank of New York City” on a monthly basis, the memo stated — though there’s no discussion of how Yang would pay for all this as the city faces a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall.

In recent days, he’s come under criticism for his tone-deaf explanation for why he and his family spent a long stretch of the pandemic in upstate New Paltz.