Andrew Yang on retail: what the evidence says · JRE #1245
SUBJECT: RETAIL
The short answer
Yang claims 30% of American malls will close within four years (from 2019). Yang repeated a version of this claim throughout his 2019-2020 campaign, including "Amazon is sucking up $20 billion in business every year, closing 30% of America's stores and malls" and "30% of our stores and malls" closing because of Amazon.
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Retail and sales, 30% of malls are closing in the next four years. So the danger here is to think of it as artificial intelligence is coming.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Yang repeated a version of this claim throughout his 2019-2020 campaign, including "Amazon is sucking up $20 billion in business every year, closing 30% of America's stores and malls" and "30% of our stores and malls" closing because of Amazon. PolitiFact fact-checked both statements and found the underlying 25-30% figure traces to real estate and retail analyst predictions that the number of malls would fall by that share "within the next few years," not a strict four-year window, and that the closures were attributed to broader e-commerce growth rather than Amazon or artificial intelligence specifically. PolitiFact also noted that overall brick-and-mortar retail sales were still rising even as store closures increased. The estimate itself was a legitimate, if contested, industry projection, but Yang's framing compressed a looser multi-year forecast into a specific four-year deadline and mischaracterized the cause.