Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#41

Post by hippo22 » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 2:22 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #28

mytailorisrich wrote: post #2

> and satisfy bureaucrats That's an unnecessary quip as that's not the point of checks. It's not surprising that if unemployed people receive benefits with no strings attached their "mental health" is better since it removes pressure to find a job. > It was the unconditionality itself—the simple act of trusting people with resources, without surveillance or judgment, without hoops to jump through or forms to fill out…

So I assume you like your manager constantly checking on your jiras, how much code you have written and calling you in to meetings where you need to justify in detail what you have done over the last week? If not, why not? Those checks are just there because you are expected to earn a profit for the company.

I don't think "liking" is the correct phrasing.

Many jobs _do_ have someone constantly looking over your shoulder to ensure that you're doing to job adequately. These jobs are often low-trust environments often staffed by low-trust individuals.

In terms of the unemployed, are they mostly high-trust or low-trust? That's what should determine the terms and conditions of the program, not whether they "like" the program or not.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#42

Post by koliber » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 8:43 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #24

koliber wrote: post #8

I wonder what is the difference between the two groups as far as the rate of finding employment. Might be that the act of looking for a job is stressful. If the goal is to get people back to work, it might not make sense to optimize just for better mental health.

You're probably not aware that €560 is subsistence money in Finland. Eat noodles every day, sell your car, keep indoor temperature at 18 C to save electricity, then maybe you have enough to pay rent. The idea that people in that situation needs to be kicked even harder to "get of their lazy asses" is cruel.

No one needs to be kicked to do anything. Welfare payments are needed for various reasons. Some people are unable to work for various reasons and need welfare to live. Some people find themselves in temporary situations where the money helps them during hard job transitions or difficult periods in life. It’s important to give people incentives to help them achieve what will make their lives truly better. Sometimes, free money removes those incentives and temporary situations become permanent. I hope you don’t perceive all incentives to encourage constructive behavior as “kicking people.”

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#43

Post by mytailorisrich » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

eschaton wrote: post #40

mytailorisrich wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They’re absolutely right, and you’re wrong. In the moral sense. You’re treating it as a moral imperative that (to be charitable) all able-bodied adults in a society must be somehow self-supporting, and using that as justification to either browbeat the recipients of minimum-quality-of-life benefits in order to continue receiving them, or to deny such benefits entirely after some point. Given the relative wealth of ou…

Unfortunately, as usual no-one replies to what was written but instead go full strawman on a single point because it is easier.

For instance: "You keep claiming there is a moral problem with giving people enough of a basic stipend to actually live out of the gutter."

I have never suggested this...

"... and using that as justification to either browbeat the recipients of minimum-quality-of-life benefits"

Or that.

"A morality that treats work as virtuous for its own sake"

And neither have I that...

Interesting how people have also latched on my mentioning morals and ignored everything else.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#44

Post by Kim_Bruning » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 3:16 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #43

eschaton wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re absolutely right, and you’re wrong. In the moral sense. You’re treating it as a moral imperative that (to be charitable) all able-bodied adults in a society must be somehow self-supporting, and using that as justification to either browbeat the recipients of minimum-quality-of-life benefits in order to continue receiving them, or to deny such benefits entirely after some point. Given the relative wealth of ou…

Unfortunately, as usual no-one replies to what was written but instead go full strawman on a single point because it is easier. For instance: " You keep claiming there is a moral problem with giving people enough of a basic stipend to actually live out of the gutter. " I have never suggested this... " ... and using that as justification to either browbeat the recipients of minimum-quality-of-life benefits " Or that.…

Oh, can you reframe? Maybe I'm reading wrong too (sorry if I did).

Meanwhile, I noticed a slight detail which both sides may have missed? : Job-finding rates were equal with the treatment and control group. Which makes sense in a high-trust society actually.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#45

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Dec 21, 2025, 4:35 AM UTC

bena wrote: post #17

LorenPechtel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And note that actually getting work removed the controlled money. That's quite a disincentive to actually finding work. Welfare systems very often end up being a trap because of this--people can't afford to succeed because they'll hit some tripwire that makes them worse off. I'd like to see welfare systems and tax codes modified with a rule that no situation can cause more than a 50% marginal "tax". (Which would mean…

The tax code (at least in the US, YMMV in other countries) is already progressive. Making more will never have you taking home less. However, most welfare systems have hard cutoffs. If you get $500 in SNAP a month and make $500 a month, you have $1000 to last a month. And if the cutoff is $501, making that one extra dollar is going to cost you $499. What would be more difficult, also gameable, but better all around i…

I'm talking about the US. You're looking at the simple version: just income. But the tax code is more than income--there are many benefits that go away at a specific AGI--if you use that benefit you can have an effective tax rate of over 100% in the realm just above the fence.

And your system doesn't work. Working is almost never truly free, you have to spend some money to make money. And you don't have that time available to do other things that stretch the money you have.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#46

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Dec 21, 2025, 4:37 AM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #22

sokoloff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making more will never have you taking home less. There are corner cases where making more can leave you with less outside of welfare. Tripping into the next IRMAA bucket is one simple to understand one.

Medicare is a form of welfare, just branded differently. It's a means-tested benefit funded in a pay-as-you-go manner via income tax just like any other. The means are just different amongst various programs. Are there any actual cases of making more earned income via a regular job worse than taking that extra dollar of pay? I'm guessing a few very rare corner-cases exist, but I can't immediately think of any. I imag…

I didn't need to press enter. Just started typing agi limit and a whole bunch of search topics came up asking about agi limits for various tax things.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#47

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Dec 21, 2025, 4:55 AM UTC

bena wrote: post #17

LorenPechtel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And note that actually getting work removed the controlled money. That's quite a disincentive to actually finding work. Welfare systems very often end up being a trap because of this--people can't afford to succeed because they'll hit some tripwire that makes them worse off. I'd like to see welfare systems and tax codes modified with a rule that no situation can cause more than a 50% marginal "tax". (Which would mean…

The tax code (at least in the US, YMMV in other countries) is already progressive. Making more will never have you taking home less. However, most welfare systems have hard cutoffs. If you get $500 in SNAP a month and make $500 a month, you have $1000 to last a month. And if the cutoff is $501, making that one extra dollar is going to cost you $499. What would be more difficult, also gameable, but better all around i…

> However, most welfare systems have hard cutoffs.

Most welfare systems have phased benefit reductions (there is a point where the benefit hits zero, which can be viewed as a hard cutoff, but it doesn't go "full benefit up to the line and then zero at the line" in most cases, though there are exceptions.

> If you get $500 in SNAP a month and make $500 a month, you have $1000 to last a month. And if the cutoff is $501, making that one extra dollar is going to cost you $499.

If the SNAP cutoff applicable to your situation was $501, then your actual benefit at $500 would be $24 (the minimum SNAP benefit), not $500. Because SNAP does a $0.30 per dollar of income clawback until the minimum benefit is reached, and then stays at the minimum benefit until the eligibility limit income is reached.

There is a cliff still, but its a lot smaller of a cliff (for SNAP alone) than you are painting.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#48

Post by colechristensen » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #10

From what I understand, two groups of unemployed persons got €560/mo. One group was required to look for work while the other wasn't. And one group was required to report to unemployment offices, and "satisfy bureaucrats". The results were that the one with unconditional payments had "better mental health". Apparently they used a "validated five-item mental health screening instrument that identifies people at risk o…

I knew someone who was getting significant public assistance to help get out of homelessness.

The requirements were a nightmare. Your employer had to fill out regular forms, the office administering the program had to fill out regular forms, when they made mistakes they'd threaten to take away your housing (and the office frequently made mistakes). If you were employed there were perverse incentives... they would reduce your benefits my MORE than you earned so it only made sense to get a job if the pay would completely disqualify you from the program. It really was torture.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#49

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #34

bko wrote: post #10

From what I understand, two groups of unemployed persons got €560/mo. One group was required to look for work while the other wasn't. And one group was required to report to unemployment offices, and "satisfy bureaucrats". The results were that the one with unconditional payments had "better mental health". Apparently they used a "validated five-item mental health screening instrument that identifies people at risk o…

'People prefer money with no strings attached' is likely a bit reductive. The power imbalance inherent in the expectation that you prove you're 'good enough' to a functionary who has the ability to determine if you have money to buy food or not sounds like a deeply unpleasant scenario to me. I could absolutely imagine a few months of that would be deleterious to my mental health, I don't know about you.

> The power imbalance inherent in the expectation that you prove you're 'good enough' to a functionary who has the ability to determine if you have money to buy food or not sounds like a deeply unpleasant scenario to me.

You've essentially described how employment works, and yes, it can be rather unpleasant.

Re: Finland gave two groups identical payments – one saw better mental health

#50

Post by pavlov » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #10

From what I understand, two groups of unemployed persons got €560/mo. One group was required to look for work while the other wasn't. And one group was required to report to unemployment offices, and "satisfy bureaucrats". The results were that the one with unconditional payments had "better mental health". Apparently they used a "validated five-item mental health screening instrument that identifies people at risk o…

> I'm sure a lot of things are linked to "poor mental health" like having to go to work

So you think unemployed people are in better mental health than those with jobs?

I guess this is part of the reason why we need these studies: because people's default assumptions are often wildly off.