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Basic Income is a subject that regularly surfaces in Soylent discussions, so here's a story about Finland's impending experiment with it:
Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens a basic monthly income, amounting to 560 euros ($587 US), in a unique social experiment which is hoped to cut government red tape, reduce poverty and boost employment.
Olli Kangas from the Finnish government agency KELA, which is responsible for the country's social benefits, said Monday that the two-year trial with the 2,000 randomly picked citizens who receive unemployment benefits kicked off Jan. 1.
Those chosen will receive 560 euros every month, with no reporting requirements on how they spend it. The amount will be deducted from any benefits they already receive.
The average private sector income in Finland is 3,500 euros per month, according to official data.
Also at The Guardian and swissinfo.ch.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tekk on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:50PM
I thought the basic idea of UBI was that you were given enough money to handle you staying alive, thereby freeing you up to actually do productive things. Now I've not done exact research on the housing prices in Finland, at least not recently, but I'm going to guess that 560 Euros isn't going to be enough to cover housing and heating in winter, much less dumb things like food and water. Also, given the stated purpose of UBI, rather than deduct the amount from their benefits, why aren't they tallying up the cost of giving them that benefits (that is, the value of the benefits plus the administrative cost around those benefits) and giving that to them? I figure that'd get a lot closer to a meaningful Basic Income figure than what in my US city would barely amount to a studio apartment and electrical bills in the winter.