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Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

nytimes.com

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Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#41

Post by k-mcgrady »

iopq wrote: post #24
k-mcgrady wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any data backing up the idea that it actually is a disincentive? 1. Anyone I know that has received benefits for being unemployed desperately wants to be employed again. 2. In the UK, unless things have changed, you can work up to 16 hours per week while receiving unemployment benefits and I believe the benefits you receive gradually falls with the amount of work you get paid for. 3. If you suddenly lose you…

> 1. Anyone I know that has received benefits for being unemployed desperately wants to be employed again. My father makes so much money that when he's unemployed he actually doesn't really look for a job that urgently. This is because his unemployment benefits are enough for him to pay the bills. He'd like to make money to retire... but he does rest for a few months in between jobs.

>> My father makes so much money that when he's unemployed he actually doesn't really look for a job that urgently

I doubt this is a typical situation of someone on unemployment benefits.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#43

Post by samcollins »

Jarwain wrote: post #22
JackFr wrote: post #19

If its only going to jobless people, not UBI. This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal . If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working? This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.

They're calling it Basic Income, not Universal Basic Income. The goal being to see what the differences are between the unemployed and the control group. There may be other issues baked into the implementation, but it will be hard to say the result until it goes into action and we start getting data

I agree. The implementation here will still enable us to learn about some aspects of UBI. The question of how benefits affect the motivation to gain re-employment will still need to be studied in further experiments.

I think it's worth celebrating that Iceland is doing controlled tests to explore this way. To really understand the best design for UBI, we need more of this.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#44

Post by zhemao »

ultraforce wrote: post #26
ScottBurson wrote: post #5

Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…

Would it be possible to do a modified system where they instead of losing the universal income unemployment benefits. There could be a system where the benefits are lowered in proportion to the income earned from jobs, that allows for those who are able to and want to work but are only able to find low paying jobs to have benefits that do not discourage them from doing work.

That's basically a negative income tax.

That is, if you make below a certain amount, the government gives you money until your income reaches some base level.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#45

Post by komodo »

JackFr wrote: post #19

If its only going to jobless people, not UBI. This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal . If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working? This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.

Why don't we do a basic income lottery?

- Anyone except previous winners can enter.

- You can only enter once per drawing.

- As the pool increases the payout does not, only the number of winners.

- Winners get a basic income for life.

- As another condition they agree to an amount of monitoring so that we can effectively study how they behave with the basic income.

- This one would be hard, but you might have to be made ineligible for other government assistance programs maybe?

State lotteries already offer annuity payouts and even better they sometimes have 100k for life lotteries. These aren't perfect as the amount is too high but it's worth studying anyway. The basic income lottery described above would be an even better approximation.

EDIT: I just did a bit of googling and it looks like this has been tried before [1][2] , but the amounts were time-limited and low. It would probably have to be state-sponsored to take off.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-basic-income-lottery-... [2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-my-basic-income-proje...

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#46

Post by guard-of-terra »

edblarney wrote: post #29
noonespecial wrote: post #11

>It will give them benefits automatically, absent bureaucratic hassle and minus penalties for amassing extra income. That last part is huge. A disincentive to work by cancelling benefits is a feature of nearly every current system. It is extremely important that someone test a system without this in it to see how a people react. This looks like a very important test for the viability of UBI.

These programs depend at very least on the 'savings' government will incur by not having 'massive bureaucracies' to manage the program. The problem is - Government Unions are the most powerful in every state, and they will never, ever allow any significant layoff of personnel. So you get a 'new program' without the most important stated benefit. The reality of government, is that it is systematically inefficient beca…

As Basic Income is being introduced, unions will be slowly sunsetted. They may still be useful to oversee work quality and workers' rights, but movement to BI means at-will employment and that's not something they'll get to haggle with.

The idea of BI is that you won't be able to live off it in Montreal. It might be sufficient to live off in some small remote town, but not in megapolis. They'll have to still wait tables, or move from Montreal.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#48

Post by acbabis »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #9

Will Finland admit publicly when it fails or will they just hide their idea as if it never happened? Remember Bio-Fuel? How progressive and wonderful it was suppose to be? Until it caused a global food shortage and suddenly none of the media ever talked about it again.

Global food shortage? If you're talking about ethanol from corn, that doesn't sound correct. Corn-based foods are dirt cheap

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#50

Post by barrkel »

drallison wrote: post #35
ScottBurson wrote: post #5

Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…

[deleted]

The explanation was right there in the comment: disincentive to work.
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