Finland to end basic income trial after two years
theguardian.com
Finland to end basic income trial after two years
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#2Finn here. The trial has been criticized from the get-go as being a poorly-designed compromise; those of us with a more cynical outlook suspect that it was intentionally nerfed so as to discredit the idea of basic income in general. But I guess it's just politics as usual; the current government as a whole is not exactly sympathetic with the idea of free money to "lazy people". Everyone does seem to agree, though, that welfare traps are a problem with the current system.
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#3It's hard to find much about why, BBC has a link to a study by an OECD think tank criticising the program, but no idea if that study specifically motivated decisionmakers in Finland.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43866700
Study: https://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Finland-2018-OECD-economic-...
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#4Finn here. The trial has been criticized from the get-go as being a poorly-designed compromise; those of us with a more cynical outlook suspect that it was intentionally nerfed so as to discredit the idea of basic income in general. But I guess it's just politics as usual; the current government as a whole is not exactly sympathetic with the idea of free money to "lazy people". Everyone does seem to agree, though, th…
> Everyone does seem to agree, though, that welfare traps are a problem
Do you have any programs like the EITC, where benefits fall on a curve and slowly phase out as you make more, so there's no hard cliff?
Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
Graph: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earned_IncomeTaxCreditW...
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#5Finn here. The trial has been criticized from the get-go as being a poorly-designed compromise; those of us with a more cynical outlook suspect that it was intentionally nerfed so as to discredit the idea of basic income in general. But I guess it's just politics as usual; the current government as a whole is not exactly sympathetic with the idea of free money to "lazy people". Everyone does seem to agree, though, th…
> Everyone does seem to agree, though, that welfare traps are a problem Do you have any programs like the EITC, where benefits fall on a curve and slowly phase out as you make more, so there's no hard cliff? Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit Graph: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earned_IncomeTaxCreditW...
We have the opposite, it's more of a skyline graph. If you receive subsidies, a lot of the time, working or studying will yield large and unexpected decreases to your total amount of income.
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#6Basic income for some is not basic income. No country has tried this yet.
Most countries actually do have a form of basic income where they are subsidizing food, shelter, healthcare in some form or another for essentially all people falling outside of the safety net of income, pensions, social security & welfare, charity, etc. I tend to think of basic income as the former without the absolutely massive bureaucratic overhead. An enormous cost saving in other words. To put this in perspective: many European countries spend almost as much on unemployment programs and related bureaucracy as they do on the actual benefits payed to the unemployed.
With a basic income you could abolish minimum wage, make labor cheaper for companies and less risky, make it easier for people to take multiple small jobs to supplement their basic income and reduce their risk, stop forcing people to retire or forcing them to work until they are allowed to retire (both are bad), make all forms of income insurance opt in (pensions, disability benefits, unemployment insurance), etc. It just simplifies things a lot.
The reason this is not happening is that dismantling the existing bureaucracy is highly disruptive and will be hugely unpopular.
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#7Basic income for some is not basic income. No country has tried this yet. Most countries actually do have a form of basic income where they are subsidizing food, shelter, healthcare in some form or another for essentially all people falling outside of the safety net of income, pensions, social security & welfare, charity, etc. I tend to think of basic income as the former without the absolutely massive bureaucratic o…
The currency of politicians is jobs and dismantling the inefficient bureaucracy is damn f*ing expensive.
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#8Basic income for some is not basic income. No country has tried this yet. Most countries actually do have a form of basic income where they are subsidizing food, shelter, healthcare in some form or another for essentially all people falling outside of the safety net of income, pensions, social security & welfare, charity, etc. I tend to think of basic income as the former without the absolutely massive bureaucratic o…
Talking about disruptive things... to provide an unconditional monetary equivalent of the benefits any unemployed people are currently entitled to (rent, minimum income, supplementary welfare) to everyone, or even every adult would by itself cost more than the entire current government budget, including current welfare costs – so you would really need to rework the whole tax system. Disruptive, perhaps? Or very simple to go ahead and “just try it”?
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#9Basic income for some is not basic income. No country has tried this yet. Most countries actually do have a form of basic income where they are subsidizing food, shelter, healthcare in some form or another for essentially all people falling outside of the safety net of income, pensions, social security & welfare, charity, etc. I tend to think of basic income as the former without the absolutely massive bureaucratic o…
Basic income for some is how you test whether all the claims you made are true. While I agree with everything you said, there are still many fundamental questions yet to be answered.
Another reason it is not happening any time soon is that rolling it out in a country such as Finland would be WAY more expensive than the current wealthfare models in Scandinavian countries as they stand now.
To roll it out for every citizen as a replacement to current wealthfare, the people who are currently receiving wealthfare will be receiving much less. To many, this would be unacceptable, as these families already are percieved to be struggling to make ends meet.
While I am still a big advocator for basic income in the developing world, I struggle to see how it would work in a country such as Denmark where I live. While I believe there are workarounds such as only providing basic income for the people who apply for it (still unconditional just opt-in instead of opt-out) there are no studies showing the effectiveness of the limitations that are necessary to make basic income feasible.
Re: Finland to end basic income trial after two years
#10Wow, so the experiment succeeded - they figured it can’t work.
Well, except for that whiner who reminds me of central banksters and complains it didn’t work because it wasn’t tried for long enough. They can pay me to do nothing for ten years, I’m ready - if they’re interested they Dan contact me offline.