Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 413 posts

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

#361

Post by guard-of-terra »

edblarney wrote: post #205
guard-of-terra wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tab…

Government unions are the most powerful organizations in the world, they will not 'sunsetted'. They have been growing in numbers, dollars and power for a 100 years, it's not going to stop now.

They're one referendum away from being disbanded.

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

#363

Post by jondubois »

komodo wrote: post #45
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 m…

NOOO! That is a terrible idea. There is already way too much luck involved in our current economic system. If would really suck if all your friends won the lottery but you didn't.

These kinds of economic lotteries only create more inequality; which is against the whole point of UBI.

It makes more sense to start by giving out a really low UBI to EVERYONE and then gradually raise that amount over time.

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

#364

Post by leke »

I could relate to the article. I'm currently living in Oulu, and was also working for a Nokia contractor until 2011. Unable to find work, I went back to polytechnic college for 3.5 years to update my skills and perhaps wait out the recession. Unfortunately, the situation hasn't gotten any better and my new bachelor's degree doesn't give me any advantage.

There are plenty of entrepreneurs requiring people of various backgrounds, but these are generally unpaid positions. I am currently writing a web-app for a charity, and have just launched a customised wordpress site for a new business. These are of course unpaid, and like the article states, it's not worth the risk of starting my own business (being a freelancer for example) as it would mean coming off benefits completely and hoping you'll make enough to pay for everything you need to pay for. UBA would suit me great. I could become that freelancer instantly, and with no fear. That company, who's website I just launched wanted to pay me, but legally it was impossible due to the reason I just mentioned (freelancing).

I'm also currently writing a language learning app, a mashup of my favourite features of DuoLingo and Memrise in my free time. Perhaps monetising that in some way may lead me out of this stagnation.

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

#365

Post by jondubois »

jcoffland wrote: post #302
logicallee wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how pissed would everyone be if one of these people became a millionaire through working on some business while using Finland's cash handout to finance it. even though the taxes from that is exactly what would make the whole program absolutely free - and is the basic point behind a UBI. It really is "free" for the country. A proper test of UBI has to make it available to everyone.

Why would anyone be pissed? If someone else does well how does that hurt you?

Because they drive up the cost of living for everyone else by consuming more stuff than they need and distorting the economy in the process.

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

#366

Post by grkvlt »

titanomachy wrote: post #259
austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

Say you have $0 income. A new policy comes into force that gives you $500 a month basic income. Even if prices increased 10x you would still be better off than before. Prices would have to increase an infinite amount for you to be able to afford the same amount of goods as before (zero). Even if you had $500/month before, you'd still be better off as long as prices don't increase more than 2x. I don't know enough to…

Sure, but if hyper-inflation results in that USD 500 buying me a loaf of bread each month, I think 'better off than before' is kindof irrelevant. There have to be tangible benefits to the recipient over and above, say income from finding pennies in the street...

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

#367

Post by mrottenkolber »

schlowmo wrote: post #350
misja111 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that many of them will use their free time to make another couple of kids and raise their income with another 1000.

While I second mrottenkolber that your guess is highly stereotypical, the intention of the polish state introducing their "500+" program seems to be exactly that: increasing the birth rate.

Do you have a source on that, or do you think lawmakers might also be concerned with the well being of children, mums, dads, single parents, young parents–no matter how many children/parents there are?

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

#368

Post by grigjd3 »

austinjp wrote: post #335
grigjd3 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the distribution of money with the supply of money. The distribution of money affects economic priorities. The supply of money (as total income per unit time) affects the overall inflation. While the priorities of an economy will certainly affect prices, it's that some prices will go up and others go down.

Unless money is redistributed then new money will indeed have to be introduced under UBI. If it is redistributed, then taxes seem an obvious method. And clearly the richer should be taxed more, since we're attempting redistribution . Unfortunately we all know that trickle-down economics fail, and corporate/elite lobbyists work hard to restrain corporate/elite taxes, to keep worker wages low, and to engage in practice…

My understanding is that most UBI proposals see the UBI as a replacement for more traditional welfare with some amount of raising taxes to keep it debt-neutral. As for the rest of what you're saying, I have no idea what you are actually trying to communicate.

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

#369

Post by mrottenkolber »

misja111 wrote: post #353
mrottenkolber wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the question would have been "what would you do?", would your answer have been the same? If not, why do you think little of us other humans?

These people quit their jobs because they were happy with their child benefits of 500 per child. This given fact, that they quit there jobs, makes me suspect that they would rather choose the strategy of increasing their salary by their number of kids than by working. If the question would have been 'what would you do', I think I would have quit my factory job as well, actually.

These people quit their shitty jobs because they are no longer forced to do them for the sake of survival, and now have more time to spend with their family, which–I guarantee you—is more valuable than whatever they were doing at work. Why do you think wanting to quit your job is anybodies fault, but the employers?

What you suspect of other people tells a lot about you, and very little about other people. I would be careful with that.

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

#370

Post by Symmetry »

austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

If it's paid for by taxes or borrowing there won't be any net inflationary effect because the money going to the recipients comes from elsewhere in the economy. The new stuff that poorer people are now buying is payed for by the creation of less stuff for rich people. Economies aren't perfectly flexible so there will be some increase in the price of good used by poor people in relation to the goods used by rich people but that effect won't be huge. Of course, if an UBI drastically reduces employment that's a whole 'nother story but people are doing these pilots to figure that out.
Post reply on HN