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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: 1) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @01:13PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 20 2018, @01:13PM (#669623) Journal

    This left you a lot of free time to learn to play the guitar and start a rock band or start a fashion house, or go and live somewhere else where jobs are to be had, or become a dope dealer and learn practical capitalism.

    As a result of this, eventually, the economy started booming (the singing 60's, The Beatles and Rolling Stones, etc), and then computers became widely used, so it was harder to get away with lying to the dole office, without which your income was inadequate, so you had to turn to organised/disorganised crime.

    An alternate explanation is that the UK's economy did the inevitable jump upwards after the mess of the Second World War.