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

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

scottsantens.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–78 of 78 posts

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

#71

Post by wtcactus »

Usual social “sciences” ideological fantasies.

If you read the article, what does it mean “better mental health”? It means nothing, the “researchers” just came up with some made up metric that justifies their -probable- initial intended outcome according to their political ideology.

I couldn’t care less of the “mood” of people receiving my taxpayer money to stay home without finding a job. If I’m forced (by threat of violence from the state, mind you) to work more hours to give my money to these people, the minimum I expect, is for the metrics to show that my money, served to speed up these people finding a new job and stop living on my money.

All other metrics are irrelevant.

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

#73

Post by forks »

antipurist wrote: post #67
forks wrote: post #58

Out of curiosity, why does the Algolia result for this submission show '4 days ago', the submission timestamp '3 hours ago', and the metadata on the submission timestamp '2025-12-18T15:34:11 1766072051'? Is this an example of an article being resubmitted (by the same user?) or otherwise boosted back onto the front page?

Second-chance pool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308

Ah neat, thank you for sharing!

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

#74

Post by saghm »

pavlov wrote: post #50
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.

It's plausible that being in poor mental health might make someone more likely to be unemployed, but that employment can still worsen someone's mental health. Even if unemployment is net better for someone's mental health than working we might see a trend where on average mental health is worse for unemployment due to the fact that employment (of a lack of it) might not cause as of an effect as other factors.

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

#75

Post by saghm »

fragmede wrote: post #70
oytis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unemployed" implies having no or very little money. Having enough so that you don't have to work would definitely improve mental well-being for the vast majority of people I think

"Retired" sounds like a more accurate word for that particular circumstance.

The original comment being responded to used the words "having to go to work". It was a reply that introduced the term unemployment and drew conclusions based on it.

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

#76

Post by idiotsecant »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #49
idiotsecant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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.

Yes, both of those scenarios involve a power imbalance when none need exist. That's what labor organization is for.

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

#77

Post by TulliusCicero »

idiotsecant wrote: post #76
TulliusCicero wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, both of those scenarios involve a power imbalance when none need exist. That's what labor organization is for.

Can't say I disagree!
Post reply on HN