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Is Finland's Universal Basic Income Trial Too Good To Be True? (theguardian.com)
It was one year ago that Finland began giving money to 2,000 unemployed people -- roughly $652 a month (€560 or £475). But have we learned anything about universal basic incomes? An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian:
Amid this unprecedented media attention, the experts who devised the scheme are concerned it is being misrepresented. "It's not really what people are portraying it as," said Markus Kanerva, an applied social and behavioural sciences specialist working in the prime minister's office in Helsinki. "A full-scale universal income trial would need to study different target groups, not just the unemployed. It would have to test different basic income levels, look at local factors. This is really about seeing how a basic unconditional income affects the employment of unemployed people."
While UBI tends often to be associated with progressive politics, Finland's trial was launched -- at a cost of around €20m (£17.7m or $24.3 million) -- by a centre-right, austerity-focused government interested primarily in spending less on social security and bringing down Finland's stubborn 8%-plus unemployment rate. It has a very clear purpose: to see whether an unconditional income might incentivise people to take up paid work. Authorities believe it will shed light on whether unemployed Finns, as experts believe, are put off taking up a job by the fear that a higher marginal tax rate may leave them worse off. Many are also deterred by having to reapply for benefits after every casual or short-term contract... According to Kanerva, the core data the government is seeking -- on whether, and how, the job take-up of the 2,000 unemployed people in the trial differs from a 175,000-strong control group -- will be "robust, and usable in future economic modelling" when it is published in 2019.
Although the experiment may be impacted by all the hype it's generating, according to the Guardian. "One participant who hoped to start his own business with the help of the unconditional monthly payment complained that, after speaking to 140 TV crews and reporters from as far afield as Japan and Korea, he has simply not been able to find the time."
While UBI tends often to be associated with progressive politics, Finland's trial was launched -- at a cost of around €20m (£17.7m or $24.3 million) -- by a centre-right, austerity-focused government interested primarily in spending less on social security and bringing down Finland's stubborn 8%-plus unemployment rate. It has a very clear purpose: to see whether an unconditional income might incentivise people to take up paid work. Authorities believe it will shed light on whether unemployed Finns, as experts believe, are put off taking up a job by the fear that a higher marginal tax rate may leave them worse off. Many are also deterred by having to reapply for benefits after every casual or short-term contract... According to Kanerva, the core data the government is seeking -- on whether, and how, the job take-up of the 2,000 unemployed people in the trial differs from a 175,000-strong control group -- will be "robust, and usable in future economic modelling" when it is published in 2019.
Although the experiment may be impacted by all the hype it's generating, according to the Guardian. "One participant who hoped to start his own business with the help of the unconditional monthly payment complained that, after speaking to 140 TV crews and reporters from as far afield as Japan and Korea, he has simply not been able to find the time."
This program is neither universal or basic.
It's simply another welfare program.
And the money has to come from SOMEWHERE.
We also know that a segment of the population, given the option to do nothing WILL DO NOTHING.
So, all that's been created is an incentive not to achieve anything.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
> We also know that a segment of the population, given the option to do nothing WILL DO NOTHING.
Do we actually know that?
I think it's good of them to try it out in small scale just to be sure.
What is so bad about doing nothing? Many of our jobs are artificial anyway.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Indeed, and by taxing trust-fund babies to provide welfare services, we incentivize them to work instead of living off inherited wealth.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
For a few years, then your taxes will creep up.
But only if we elect Democrats, since they all voted against the tax bill and all the Republicans voted for it... so Republicans a few years from now would vote to keep the cuts permanent, and obviously Democrats would get rid of the tax cut.
Rare to see an AC on Slashdot argue so clearly why the whole country should vote Republican!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
not artificial if you get money for it, with which to buy things. doesn't matter how pointless you might think a job is, only how much the person paying your believes it is.
We also know that a segment of the population, given the option to do nothing WILL DO NOTHING.
If they do nothing instead of spending their time committing crime it might well be worth it. If my options are to pay people to stay at home or to pay police, prison guards, and and much larger legal system I'd prefer to avoid creating bigger government for no real benefit.
Also, we're already paying loads of taxes to fund various welfare programs. You could have a reasonably sized UBI by getting rid of the various different programs and putting everything towards a UBI instead. That also has the added benefit of greatly simplifying the system and making another huge chunk of government bureaucracy redundant.
No system is going to be perfect, and there will always be people who try to take advantage of the system or who add no value to society, but they exist independent of the system. However, that shouldn't stop us from making pragmatic choices when possible.
All completely true, agree 100%. Hear, hear. /. who want to suddenly find themselves living in the economy of Star Trek's 24th Century Earth, but without the technological infrastructure that makes it possible: Ubiquitos nuclear fusion and antimatter reactor-based power (to the point cost-wise of being literally free to all), and matter-energy conversion technology, making matter replicators (which can create literally all the basics of existence for you instantly, for free, directly from energy, no other raw materials required). If we had these technologies, then the only people who would have to work would be the people who wanted to work, money would be obsolete, and the possibility of a Utopia where everyone can pursue whatever they wish to could become a reality. But we do not have these technologies, that society/civilization does not exist, energy sources and the basics for living are far from free, and so-called 'Universal Basic Income' simply does not scale up to a population the size of any first-world country.
There are many people on
Furthermore: it is my opinion that many of the proponents of UBI are disingenuous, and do wish to be living in a world where they get handed money, and will do nothing other than sit on their behinds, being fat, lazy, and contributing nothing to anyone other than themselves, with not a care in the world for the fact that they're just parasites.
The discussion of Universal Basic Income should be shelved until if and when we live in a world where we have the aforementioned technologies or equivalent to support it, and not a moment sooner.
not artificial if you get money for it, with which to buy things.
The money is real, but the work is artificial. So much of what happens is bullshit make-work that's unnecessary replication of effort, which happens only so that people can get paid. But there are environmental costs to work, so bullshit make-work is just spending the biosphere to maintain capitalism. Does that sound smart to you?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This program is neither universal or basic.
No, it's testing a specific aspect of a universal basic income, exactly what you'd want a responsible government to do.
It's simply another welfare program.
No, a welfare program is designed to maintain the well-being of citizens, this is an experiment to see if a universal basic income will reduce unemployment.
And the money has to come from SOMEWHERE.
Taxes, some of which will hopefully be paid by these people, reduced benefits from other programs, and reduced administration in running the program.
We also know that a segment of the population, given the option to do nothing WILL DO NOTHING.
But we don't know how big that segment is, or exactly how they are distributed, this will shed light on that question.
So, all that's been created is an incentive not to achieve anything.
They already had an incentive not to achieve anything, traditional welfare programs.
What this does do is reduce some pressure to find work, but it also removes some incentives for not entering the workforce (such as losing benefits).
I stole this Sig
In trial runs of UBI, the participants know that the trial will end. So if *hypothetically* people would go lazy secure in the knowledge they will have a UBI, this won't prove anything as they won't be that secure in the income.
A negative result would be really discouraging, a positive result would be too ambiguous.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Sweden, Norway, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, ...
There's plenty of countries where the tax rates are high that offer a WAY higher quality of life than most of the US for most of its people.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm getting tired of all the AC's who are polluting \. with Trump comments in every thread. While I can understand mentally ill people can be affected by TARD (Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder), the fact that Trump is living in their brains, rent free, and infecting everything they do and say is unfortunate. It will be my tax dollars which pay for their medication, therapy and future involuntary committal to an institution.
Oh, we are so SO far past that.
I am offended by other people who are not doing anythings children being given priority access to health and education over my children, because I choose to not do nothing.
I suspect the next stage will result in me being offended that what I have worked my life for is taken away and given to people who did nothing, because I am 'entitled' (ie: I worked hard, and saved, and ended up without towering debt) and they are 'victims' of me having dared to try.
Of course the powers that be are quite happy with that - a class war is as profitable as any other kind, and they make sure they rules never touch themselves.
The ONLY Solution unfortunately involved people putting aside their small differences, uniting the middle and lower classes against those at the top, and tearing down the corrupt power structures put in place by those at the top.
Unfortunately, the majority are more worried about friday night football, Oprah, and who is showing their tits on game of thrones.
Panem et circenses.
So, the reason the individual income tax cut is not permanent is because the DNC voted against it? Had they gotten 9 DNC Senators on board the tax cut for workers would be perm?
Sounds like we need to boot out DNC that hates middle class workers and get the GOP another 9 seats at the least so we can make it perm for us.
Yea, its the GOP that did something for the workers that is evil, while the DNC that shit on us is our friends?
Fuck off.
So your plan is a massive corporate tax cut (without removing any of the corporate deductions) AND an individual tax cut when your country is already running a huge deficit?
When do you plan on paying down that deficit?
(and it's fun how you manage to blame the Democrats for the GOP's awful tax bill)
I stole this Sig
How about this. Consider it a subsistence existence payment. The payment for denying the people the right to subsist by being a hunter gatherer. What right do you claim to be able starve people to death, by denying them a subsistence existence and killing them slowly in prison or fast with a bullet should they dare to attempt a hunter gatherer existence. By what right do you claim to be able to force slave labour or starvation and any claim on that right also provides a claim on the right for people to kill anyone who attempts to deny them a subsistence existence. A human being has a right to exist and the right is expressed by being able to exist to survive, not to be turned into a slave via threat of starvation, imprisonment until death or summary execution.
The simplest definition of capitalism, 'my capital worth is worth more than you life', in fact as many people as need to perish in order to preserve my capital value and that is the fact of capitalism, the legalisation of capital worth being greater than human worth.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Good news, no one is asking you to pay a dime. The government's paying for it.
I'm sincerely curious where you think the government gets the money.
These countries are NOT America. They may have their own issues (and certainly do), however they are a very very different place.
Unfortunately they are being slowly infected by 'American Exceptionalism' and all the BS that seems to drag along with it, however they are less far along that diseased path.
You've got it backwards. The Scandinavian countries have been infected by "socialist exceptionalism" but may be throwing it off to return to Scandinavian exceptionalism.
Debunking the Myth of Socialist “Success” in Scandinavia
As Sanandaji explains clearly in his meticulously sourced book, though, what most Big Government advocates see as desirable outcomes in Scandinavia — relative prosperity, high levels of income equality, long lifespans, good health, low levels of poverty, and more — all predate the welfare state. On life expectancy, for example, four out of the top five OECD nations were in Scandinavia in 1960, with Norway at the very top. On income, meanwhile, most of the shift toward “equality” happened between 1870 and 1950 — long before the welfare state took over. Ironically, the emergence of Big Government even put some of that at risk, along with the long-established cultural norms such as the Protestant work ethic, honesty, social trust, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more that made those advances possible to begin with.
Indeed, before the emergence of welfare-state policies beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, Sweden was among the most prosperous and fast-growing economies on the planet. Between 1870 and 1936, when Sweden was characterized by relatively free markets, the nation enjoyed the highest rate of growth in the industrialized world. Innovation and entrepreneurship flourished, making Sweden one of the richest countries on Earth. Then came the radical Social Democratic period characterized by an ever-larger and more expensive government. Between 1975 and the mid-1990s — marked by the radical, if short-lived, experiment in “Third Way” socialism — Sweden dropped from being the fourth richest nation in the world down to the 13th richest.
Fortunately for Swedes, as the giant welfare state's harmful effects became increasingly obvious, the Swedish political class began to reverse course. From lowering taxes and government spending to deregulating and privatizing broad swaths of the economy, policymakers realized that the nation's continued success depended on freer markets — not total government. Still, the damage was severe. As Sanandaji explains, citing his earlier research on the subject, the rate of business formation during the “third-way era” was “dreadful.” In 2004, none of the 100 largest firms ranked by employment were founded within Sweden after 1970. “Furthermore, between 1950 and 2000, although the Swedish population grew from 7 million to almost 9 million, net job creation in the private sector was close to zero,” he observed.
Today, Denmark, despite higher taxes, has more economic freedom than the United States. Sweden and Finland are both catching up, too. And interestingly, despite Sanders' recent pronouncements on ABC News about Scandinavia having “more income and wealth equality,” Sweden still has a great deal more “wealth inequality” today than the United States, according to a study cited in the monograph.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
fuck your grasp of economics is just too awesome to debate. perhaps it might be a good idea for you to research where the government gets its money,
If you need to work to reliably eat and keep a roof over your head, but you CAN'T find work anywhere due to illness, lack of (the right) skills, past crime history making you undesirable for hiring etc., then spending your time stealing stuff becomes very attractive. If you have a reliable income and you're basically a good person you stop stealing stuff.
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Debunking the Myth of Socialist "Success" in Scandinavia
Hmm let's see. The opening line is:
Well the opening line is a huge pile of politically slanted bias and we're only 10 words in. With an opening like that I'm not going to waste my time giving something so obviously biased the "benefit of the doubt".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Godwin much? Please point to gas chambers. Your childish statement dishonors those who fought them, those who died, and trivializes the real seriousness of Nazism. Please grow up.
Just another day in Paradise
Please point to gas chambers. Your childish statement dishonors those who fought them, those who died, and trivializes the real seriousness of Nazism. Please grow up.
What kind of person are you, who minimizes the seriousness of newnazism getting a new foothold in America? You dishonor all mammals.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.