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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: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:56AM (1 child)
Because that's not how that works. First off, this pilot didn't fail, it was stopped a year early for political reasons. We won't know for some time whether it worked or not as the numbers haven't yet been crunched.
Secondly, that's not how monetary policy works. Money that the government spends doesn't ever need to be paid back. Money spent by individuals does. The worst thing that happens is that if you run up a deficit that you wind up with inflation. Potentially a lot of inflation which is why governments generally have taxes that allow them to remove some of the money that they injected into the economy by spending it.
In this case, the money that they spend in terms of an UBI is would mostly come back in the form of taxes and increased economic activity as the poor usually don't have enough money to where they can throw it under the mattress.
Honestly, this is why rightwing economic policy invariably fails. It's based upon a bunch of ignorance and a lack of subject area research.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 20 2018, @01:53PM
Define "failed" and "success" in relation to this silly program.
And, I hate to inform you, but governmental debt does have to be paid back. If it didn't, we wouldn't be paying our central bank interest on all the money in circulation. If debts don't have to be repaid, then we wouldn't even keep track of them. If debts didn't have to be repaid, banks wouldn't loan any money. If governments didn't have to repay their debts, then there would be no bankrupt governments.
https://www.dailysabah.com/economy/2015/06/28/83-countries-went-bankrupt-in-200-years [dailysabah.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default [wikipedia.org]