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posted by janrinok on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the rainbows-and-unicorns dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @07:03AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @07:03AM (#669540)

    No. In the future when all the jobs are taken, everyone will be eating each other since there will not enough government money to cover even the basic survival mode checks. Which is what everyone saying UBI is so perfect fail to realize. If there are no jobs, or not enough jobs, paying into the government to fund the ubi, then wtf is the ubi suppose to do.

    Right NOW in all the test scenarios, the ubi is being funded by normal tax dollars since everyone outside the program is still working and paying taxes.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @01:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @01:01PM (#669616)

    If there are no jobs, or not enough jobs, paying into the government to fund the ubi, then wtf is the ubi suppose to do.

    If there is no UBI, what are the robots doing? If nobody has any income, then nobody can buy anything, which means there is no reason to have robots make anything.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:02PM (#669686)

    Not everyone who is paying taxes is earning the money by working. The simplest and most obvious case being property owners renting out their property.

  • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:17AM

    by deimtee (3272) on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:17AM (#669969) Journal

    The obvious answer is to start taxing wealth. 1% per year should do it. Taxing only (or mainly) income was one of the biggest con jobs ever pulled on the middle and working classes.
    And I don't mean Capital Gains tax either, that is just another form of income. I mean, if you own $10Billion worth of assets, you pay $100Million tax. That's the price of society respecting and protecting your ownership of those assets.

    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.