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from the handouts-instead-of-gov't-jobs-or-worker-owned-cooperatives dept.
Common Dreams reports
As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering[1] all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month.
[...] The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution--counter-intuitive as it may first appear at first--that actually decreases government expenditures while boosting both productivity, quality of life, and unemployment.
[...] The basic income proposal, put forth by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, would see every adult citizen "receive 800 euros ($876) a month, tax free, that would replace existing benefits. Full implementation would be preceded by a pilot stage, during which the basic income payout would be 550 euros and some benefits would remain."
[...] Under the current welfare system, a person gets less in benefits if they take up temporary, low-paying or part-time work--which can result in an overall loss of income.
[...] As Quartz reports, previous experiments with a basic income have shown promising results:
Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours,[PDF] this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.
[1] Link to The Independent in TFA was redundant IMO.
...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).
An actual move toward Socialism would subsidize the formation of worker-owned cooperatives. An initiative to do that was floated in 1980. 5 percent of taxes would have gone into a pool (kinda like USA's Social Security fund). The Finns rejected it. Source: Prof. Richard Wolff
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:45PM
The problem with this kind of scheme is that it only functions if there are more suckers working than freeloaders. It discourages work, because the more you work, the more you pay for freeloaders. So why not just freeload, instead of work hard to support others? The law of perverse incentives kicks in. There's a tipping point where not enough people have incentive to work to pay for the freeloaders, and it collapses.
I actually ran into this when I had a second job. Getting a second job put me over a limit to pay an income surtax. Every marginal dollar I was making by working hard and contributing to society was being so heavily taxed to support freeloaders that I was discouraged from working extra. I might as well watch cat videos on YouTube and relax than to do more work.
Perhaps this sort of scheme can work in small countries,but it sure won't work in a large country like America. We not only have too many freeloaders, they know how to game the system. Gaming the system becomes their full-time employment.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:09PM
There is no more system to game. The ubi gets rid of most other programs. As for freeloading, it is hardly enough to do more than survive on. Plenty of people will work at least part time to have disposable income.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:32PM
You know, USA is made of states. States that most are about as big as Finland. So if the state handless all this, then it has just as good chances as it does in Finland, sizewise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:04AM
Alaska already has something similar, from the pipeline money. Sarah Palin doesn't talk about it much when she's on Fox News.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:54PM
The problem with this kind of scheme is that it only functions if there are more suckers working than freeloaders.
We already have that. Your employer derives more benefit from your labor than he/she/it pays for.