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Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#151

Post by stevekemp »

notkaiho wrote: post #27
onion2k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"low paid" work doesn't automatically mean things people will only do given no alternative. Plenty of people want to work in jobs like childcare, nursing, writing, farming, gardening, etc because they actually enjoy the work and find it rewarding but they can't because it doesn't pay well enough to live.

Have you seen what childcare and nursing pay in Finland? Both require degrees, both are well-paid and secure. You may want to re-check your assumptions. :)

Indeed, competition is fierce, even with the educational requirements.

I had a rough plan of working in a daycare (päiväkoti) as a native English speaker. Sadly there are few private daycare places that hire English-speaking people, and for those that are in existance demand is so high that I had no chance.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#152

Post by random314 »

SilasX wrote: post #84
nicbou wrote: post #51

Last year, I had something that was very close to basic income (income-generating website that doesn't require active babysitting). I knew a life without work would be amazing, but I never expected it to be this great. I had much more time and energy to enjoy life. There was never a rush to do anything. I woke up when I wasn't tired. I could read in bed for an hour if it felt right. Sometimes I'd just walk 3-5 kilome…

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone , unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly ha…

If there is UBI, you can move to places where rent is cheap, you don't have to be where the jobs are.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#153

Post by yohannparis »

gustavo-fring wrote: post #65
nicbou wrote: post #51

Last year, I had something that was very close to basic income (income-generating website that doesn't require active babysitting). I knew a life without work would be amazing, but I never expected it to be this great. I had much more time and energy to enjoy life. There was never a rush to do anything. I woke up when I wasn't tired. I could read in bed for an hour if it felt right. Sometimes I'd just walk 3-5 kilome…

You didn't have UBI, you had a well-paying job. The main UBI proposals for the US target $1k per month and that target means a budget of about 3 trillion per year and does not take into account health insurance. I don't know about you, but living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible. Either you get roommates or you are going to end up in the cheapest most out of the way apart…

UBI is not meant to be without work on other incomes, it just meant to have a financial safety net without regulations and criteria (below poverty, disabled, location, children, etc.)

If you get $1,000/month right now, things would go smoother, and you still have to pay tax on your new higher wage.

UBI is not a "never work only consume" solution.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#154

Post by luckylion »

fredsir wrote: post #137
luckylion wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite the opposite, you want to make sure that all goods and services are being provided, but only enough so that the primary goal can be achieved: to give people as much stress-free spare time as possible without breaking the economy. That's solved. 10 square meters, 18°C during winter, 2500 calories a day, and basic health insurance. It's cheap enough that we can supply that to everyone. It's just that people wan…

> It's the majority of people that prioritize that which you do not like, it's not some hidden force that makes them. Sure they are. People today grow up being told and shown how to be materialistic, how to value short term economical gain, and so on, and then you get people that are like that. It's not surprising, is it? Humans are very much affected by the culture they grow up in. Our culture rewards greed, values…

But that's just US culture, European cultures are quite different (wealth is suspect in Germany, for example, a rather collectivist society) and we still have plenty of mindless consumerism.

And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired. Yet still, the utopian society where everybody is working on bettering themselves is not happening. At some point I believe we can consider that it's not the circumstances holding them back, it's just not what most people strive for.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#155

Post by grecy »

nicbou wrote: post #105
grecy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've chosen to do this twice now, and echo your sentiments After saving for 2 years I quit my software job and spent two years driving from Alaksa to Argentina. I went on multi-day hiking trips, I poked lava with a stick, I paddled with icebergs, went scuba diving and camped in the mountains of Alaska and Patagonia. I got up when I pleased, I cooked my own food (except when street food was stupid-cheap) and I worked…

I rode a motorcycle from Germany to Kazakhstan. That's the project that got me going, and the website picked up along the way. I didn't bring it up because that was paid for by my savings. I enjoyed this trip so much that I wanted to repeat it elsewhere, but the cost of living is higher in the places I want to see. Then COVID-19 happened and it delayed my trip. I got a short work contract to save up for it, and it me…

Epic trip man! Central Asia is extremely high on my list. I can not wait.

> I find it cool that I get to choose how much of my life I want to exchange for money.

I agree with you so much, and speaking at events and writing books about what I've done, by number one focus is helping people to realize work/life balance is often a choice.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#156

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

luckylion wrote: post #144
toomuchtodo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a smaller scale, we should see where older folks on Social Security live. They have a form of UBI and also usually don’t or can’t work.

Or we could look at Germany. Our welfare system is largely unconditional. You're asked to find a job to pull your own weight, but you're not pushed too hard. You'll get an apartment, TV, utilities, health insurance and a few hundred euros a month for food & what ever you want to spend it on. If we did cut out the theoretical work-requirement and possibly stopped paying the rent and instead paid out money (but then qu…

>So far, I haven't seen the explosion in creativity, entrepreneurship, volunteering etc that's usually promised.

That's because most people don't have the ambition and discipline of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and if given the chance would rather bum around their whole life instead of work.

I see the same thing in Austria and so do my friends living in other wealthy European countries with strong social nets.

Most people, if given easy access to welfare, would rather lower their standard of living to fit in that small sum of money and not do anything all day rather than use their free time to hustle, learn a new skill or build a business that will permit them a higher standard of living later on.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#157

Post by hnarn »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #142
hnarn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people may not agree with me but I've always felt that there's an interesting take on our history: Throughout most of civilization, most types of progress has been the result of the intellectual work of an elite. Most progress in science, art, and pretty much anything comes from a "noble" or some kind of free man either doing it themselves, or directly financing someone who did. Most people today probably wouldn…

> " But as sure as you can be those people will exist, there will also be people who could have been the next Newton, the next Kierkegaard, slaving away in a warehouse somewhere, dead in the gate before the race even started. " There are surely far more efficient ways of nurturing the next Newton or Kierkegaard than by spraying economy-breaking quantities of money around blindly. That's simply being wasteful.

That's assuming that there's a decent way to identify these people and that people's potential is pretty much constant across their first 30 years. I'm not saying our current "filters" are useless but I don't think anyone can claim that they are without fault.

I'm also not sure that it's true that this would require "spraying money around", I think a lot of man-hours are already spent on useless work and/or basically doing nothing, but doing nothing during salaried time is not equivalent to doing nothing during your own time in terms of potential.

Sure, it's a utopia and a dream but I think it's naive to say that our current economy is already ideal when it comes to distribution of necessary goods and realizing the potential of the individual.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#158

Post by jacobr1 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #118
chillacy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that rent won't go up, but depending on the UBI scheme it probably won't go up 1:1. Rent goes up because there are more people looking for a limited resource in urban areas: if you want to work in the city you must live near the city. A UBI that isn't tied to location makes it easier for people to live elsewhere, which reduces demand.

On a smaller scale, we should see where older folks on Social Security live. They have a form of UBI and also usually don’t or can’t work.

But also have interesting factors of health concerns (more likely to need nursing care, or need a home without stairs) and on the other side, many are more likely to have large savings. There are other factors like some wanting to live near children/grandchildren who are more likely to live in a high-cost area due to jobs. I'm not sure if all the balances out, but those on social security have plenty of different concerns than working-age folks.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#159

Post by fredsir »

luckylion wrote: post #154
fredsir wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the majority of people that prioritize that which you do not like, it's not some hidden force that makes them. Sure they are. People today grow up being told and shown how to be materialistic, how to value short term economical gain, and so on, and then you get people that are like that. It's not surprising, is it? Humans are very much affected by the culture they grow up in. Our culture rewards greed, values…

But that's just US culture, European cultures are quite different (wealth is suspect in Germany, for example, a rather collectivist society) and we still have plenty of mindless consumerism. And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired. Yet still, the utopian society where everybody is working on bettering themselves is not happening. At some point I believe we can consider that it's not the circumst…

I live and am from Denmark, and I can tell you that at least here, people are indeed taught and forced to do all those things. It's just hidden away behind all the nice stuff. A big part of it is social pressure, from the state, from social groups, and even from yourself, having been taught that one looks down on people not working as a wageslave for this many hours a month, and so on.

Obviously, we have it better here than many other places, but this is something that is going on everywhere that capitalism is, because it's a core part of capitalism.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#160

Post by 7532yahoogmail »

The American system is or aims for equality of opportunity. Europe manages for equality of outcomes. These are vastly different. To make UBI work in the US is a much bigger uphill battle as a result. Now, it can be rightly argued that these remain goals to some extent. Civil rights weren't passed until the 60s in the US. So we can inveigh there where gaps remain. Finally, UBI cannot be seriously engaged and implemented without tackling tax breaks, and other social programs like Medicare/Medicade. Otherwise it's just more money. More money isn't always the answer
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