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Unexpected News that nobody could have foreseen.
Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month – and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25–58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution.
Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560, or $690, per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.
While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction.
and . . .
Entrepreneurs who have expressed support for UBI include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, and Google's futurist and engineering director Ray Kurzweil.
These tech moguls recognize that UBI, as well as [combating] poverty, could also help solve the problem of increased robotization in the workforce, a problem they are very much part of creating.
and . . .
The existing unemployment benefits were so high, the Finnish government argued, and the system so rigid, an unemployed person might choose not to take a job as they would risk losing money by doing so – the higher your earnings, the lower your social benefits. The basic income was meant as an incentive for people to start working.
This article gives me serious doubts about whether a program like this can work and whether other countries will try it.
Previously: Finland: Universal Basic Income Planned for Later in 2016
Finland Launches Basic Income Experiment With Jan. 1 Cheques for Those in Pilot Project
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday April 20 2018, @04:47AM
To actually live on 560 euro you probably need to get a cheap airplane ticket to some warm third world country. There you could possibly live fine on 560 euro per month. But in Finland? Nope.
You might be able to manage 560 a month, for just the rent, if you inherited your own place or bought it via a bankruptcy sale or something similar and have your own cars for you and your family to drive the long commute between there and anywhere you actually need to be and have other funds for that and the parking fees. However, an unofficial estimate is that just the apartment rent alone is over 700 per month.
There is no information in that particular article about why they actually cancelled the program. It quite likely could have worked 30 years ago in Finland and was definitely needed 25 years ago. However, now everything is privatized that the prices would just adjust accordingly the very next month. Say they raise it to 1000 EUR per month, within the quarter basic housing would readjust up to 1001 per month.
Any country interested in growing is going to have to invest in growth. All I ever read about anywhere instead is about both politicians and businessmen finding new ways to cut. That leads to more unemployment and far lower quality of service. We haven't begun to see the nasty fallout yet from when individual people realize they will never be able to do the work tasks of three or four people laid on them and ease back en masse.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.