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Finland Basic Income Trial Left People 'Happier But Jobless' (bbc.com)
Giving jobless people in Finland a basic income for two years did not lead them to find work, researchers said. From a report: From January 2017 until December 2018, 2,000 unemployed Finns got a monthly flat payment of $685. The aim was to see if a guaranteed safety net would help people find jobs, and support them if they had to take insecure gig economy work. While employment levels did not improve, participants said they felt happier and less stressed. When it launched the pilot scheme back in 2017, Finland became the first European country to test out the idea of an unconditional basic income. It was run by the Social Insurance Institution (Kela), a Finnish government agency, and involved 2,000 randomly-selected people on unemployment benefits. It immediately attracted international interest - but these results have now raised questions about the effectiveness of such schemes.
It did not reduce unemployment, but it reduced the stress of that situation for people. That social impact of that cannot be ignored. In addition, this was only 2,000 random people out of 400,000. That is not enough to determine the economic impact on any sort of measurable scale.
This experiment it is a starting point, not a failure.
What happened to the crime and traffic rates?
What is the cost of living in Finland?
Not enough info in the story.
The results from experiments with a random selection of 2000 people cannot be extrapolated to a hypothetical situation of Universal Basic Income. Job dynamics when everybody has a guaranteed source of income would be... interesting.
This is actually a really shitty test. Give wage slaves a year of guaranteed pay and of course they will take the year off, it's the only time in their lives they'll get a year-long vacation before they've gone senile. Basic income tests which don't last for life are invalid (to say nothing of their non-randomized selection of candidates.) This whole study was propaganda to keep plebs thinking they need to spend every waking hour of the good parts of their life working for someone other than themselves.
If you read the article, you'd see that the people enrolled in the pilot had similar rates of employment to a control group. It isn't that they don't bother -- they bother just as often regardless of whether they have a basic income.
If it were reported accurately, this would alleviate the fear that you just parroted, that people would stop working.
A lot of people like to point out that basic income will not motivate people to work, yet we're subsidizing that laziness, and that's certainly true. However, the mistake is assuming that we aren't paying for it already. I would rather use a basic income to replace all of the existing social programs that we spend billions of dollars on per year. It's far better solution in that it's more adaptive (food stamps are useless if you need to repair your car to get to a job) and less expensive to administer since it's a single program.
But it's also necessary to look at it in terms of other costs it might help prevent. People without money or any way to obtain it aren't going to sit and starve. More often than not they turn to some form of crime. It costs a lot of money to hire a police force necessary to deal with that crime and to incarcerate the criminals who perpetuate it. If $700 a month stops us from having to pay almost four times that amount to lock that person up in jail, we're recognizing cost savings there as well.
I think that large scale government wealth redistribution schemes are folly, but a basic income is the best way to go about doing it. From a utilitarian point of view, we're already spending massive amounts of money on these types of programs. I think it's a good compromise because the left gets their government program and the right gets a smaller government.
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I'm on the fence about the whole thing but I find it interesting that there's an assumption that the result was a bad thing. I don't believe in an afterlife so you're born, you live, you die. The only thing that makes much sense during that period is to try and be happy and this study seemed to improve their happiness.
Now, one might say 'fuck that, I paid for their happiness which makes me unhappy' which makes really good sense.
The real question is, is there sufficient free energy in the system that we can provide food and lodging for humanity if they don't contribute *IF* we also provide increasing incentives to contribute. So you get a basic income for doing nothing and more and more for actually contributing to the system.
I've seen no compelling objective modeling either way.
Yeah, they should learn to code and then they can work for themselves.
Thanks, after reading your comment I went and read the article more closely. It says
Mr Simanainen says that while some individuals found work, they were no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.
As you say, that's an incredibly disingenuous summary. The big worry about UBI is that people won't work. The test is "do people work less?" and even on this very limited test, the answer is no. That's the unexpected (by anti-UBI people) answer that makes this test a resounding success. The fact that it's being sold as anything else is Finland's government and the media being dishonest.
A few things:
1 - They did not get employment more than their counterparts (it doesn't help 'em find jobs).
2 - They did not get employment less than their counterparts (they don't take the money and slack off).
3 - They were collecting this instead of unemployment or other benefits (which may have different bureaucratic ramifications one way or another depending on program implementation overhead).
4 - They were happier.
5 - This is a successful experiment - it produced data in a controlled manner which can likely be replicated.
There are a few narratives left to be explored. Here are some samples of such stories:
(PRO) "UBI, as implemented, costs less than the collection of unemployment, food stamps, housing assistance, and other assorted benefits. Giving poor people money through a unified program decreases administration costs and allows for individual choice regulation in the marketplace without affecting employment outcomes."
(debatable-PRO) "UBI, as implemented, is more expensive than unemployment costs in implementation, but results in happier and less stressful citizens."
(neutral) "UBI, as implemented, did not result in people just sitting about the house."
(debatable-CON) "UBI did not result in additional risk-taking, business-starting, or other activities, as hypothesized."
(CON) "UBI cost the taxpayer money to pay people to be happier while they sat at home doing nothing productive."
"You want more joblessness, you give out rewards (in the form of cash payment) for being jobless."
And the best part is that the solution is in your post:
"You want people to smoke less, you put higher taxes on cigarettes"
We need to put higher taxes on people who are unemployed. That'll solve unemployment. It's so obvious I wonder why its not in every school textbook.
I'm in a well paying job that I'm not particularly fond of (though it's not terrible). I'd love to branch out and start my own business doing something I enjoy however that's a lot of risk, especially when I have a young son at home.
If I was guaranteed a small basic income that may give me the safety net I need to get something started.
But that's just my take. Every person would be different.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
You really shouldn't live like you are. To say you can't change that is a lie you tell yourself. Cut one minor expense or two a month and you can have thousands saved over years of working. Take serious stock of your expenses and you can save many thousands. To say you can't do that is an idiotic lie you tell yourself.
My household income is >$200k but my cable, movie and video entertainment bill is literally $0 out of habits formed when my income was not this high. I go to the library and check out TV shows and movies and watch youtube. I had netflix once until they decided to make it all about minorities. Now I have an extra $120 a year to save. Over 30 years, cancelling netflix alone is $3,600 without accounting for investment earnings.
I thought that one of the big benefits of UBI is that it replaces a bunch of other complex, difficult-to-manage and costly programs. TFA does not state if they saw any cost savings from running the program. People who want to work are going to eventually find jobs. People who want to abuse the system are going to abuse the system. The question is if UBI is easier and cheaper to manage than supposed programs to encourage people to go back to work.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
No one says that UBI makes people work more, just that it is not an impediment to people working. I'd say the result they found is completely what would be expected for a successful test.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Well yes and it was given to people who are unable or unwilling to work now. Make it a decent sum and give it to working class people who are at least 25 and make a similar amount now. See if their investments, wealth, and income increase across the group over five years.
There isn't enough info, and I doubt a 2k test run will yield statistically detectable changes in crime and traffic rate.
(Aside: what if crime rates actually went up due to UBI?)
The biggest problem with 2k doing the test is; that's not enough people to tank the economy if this turns out to be economically important.
That said, I would say that happiness in life is ultimately the most important thing. Happiness is what makes life worth living; but if the economy collapsed because of UBI, I don't think people would be happy for long.
You can't experiment with UBI on 2000 people- you need to do it with a whole region, or country... I wouldn't want to be living in one of the first test places though in case it went wrong.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The main theory behind a UBI is reducing the diminishing returns from going from unemployed to employed. The loss of benefits (unemployment, food stamps, disability, etc) often is as much or close to the income from an entry level job. So instead of getting paid ~$12 / hour for work (after taxes, etc.), you're only seeing a ~$1-2 /hour increase. For many people it's not cost effect to get work when they already on some programs.
The UBI is basically supposed to say "Go get a job, look at all the extra money!"
[Not that I agree/disagree. It has has some interesting ideas, and I think experiments like this is a good idea. But, people are selfish bastards, so I'm not optimistic.]
"We can't just generalize "people" because there are some which have virtually no chance of getting a job."
No but we can generalize currently unemployed people and know they have a higher probability of having a disadvantage in job seeking. A more useful test might have been to give a decent UBI to a group that makes a sum on par with that UBI. In 5-10 years are they living on the UBI, continuing to earn twice the income (and probably reach a higher tax bracket even if you don't tax the UBI itself but only count it for that purpose. Have they increased their wealth and earnings at a greater rate than the control group who doesn't have the UBI?
It's the same clueless problem again and again a UBI might organically eliminate the need for many social programs (it should be high enough that nobody qualifies for them) but it isn't charity or a gift to the poor.A UBI is to provide a stronger position for workers to negotiate. Lower the risk of opportunity exploitation and ultimately to provide a means to ensure workers have a fallback when the jobs go away. If you match the UBI dollar per dollar to earned income you provide double incentive to upward advancement and move millions of people into a taxable range. That will make taxation less top heavy and you'll be enabling the growth of massive investment wealth, the returns will generate more taxes, provide for retirement and stimulate the economy. That also leads to a substantially more solvent social retirement program like social security.
The test is "do people work less?" and even on this very limited test, the answer is no.
The article said no such thing. It said that some of the participants found work, and that they were not more likely to do so than the control group. While many people seem to be taking this for granted, the article never said that participants were just as likely to find work as the control group. The full results of the study will not be released until next year. My impression from the article was that they are admitting that they didn't get the results they wanted (more employment) but at least for now are avoiding the subject of just how much negative impact the experiment had on employment rates among the participants while attempting to refocus attention on other aspects like the participants' reported "happiness".
Regarding those who did get jobs: All the participants are well aware that this experiment won't last forever, so it makes sense to plan for what happens after it ends. How might that change under a true UBI, where they can count on receiving payments for the rest of their lives?
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Have you considered the stress that people experience when they need to pony up the money when taxes are being paid?
If this causes you as much stress as "my children are starving and homeless", you need to re-evaluate your life.
The trial is limited by its length as well as choice of participants.
From the article:
From January 2017 until December 2018, 2,000 unemployed Finns got a monthly flat payment of €560 (£490; $685).
Very few people would stop looking for work, or even consider a career change for the equivalent an $8000 check. If I wanted to start a business, I would need at least 2-3 years of savings, and if the business fails, I'd want something to tide me over until I find a new job. If I were to change careers to do something I think is beneficial to mankind, but doesn't pay much, such as teaching, I'd want enough to last me to retirement.
The other problem is that unemployed people are already looking for jobs. The reason they don't have one is because they can't find one. Giving them money makes no difference. To see the economic effects of UBI, you'd have to give it to the entire population, which in turn stimulates demand and thus business and job growth.
If they want to do a proper study, it should be 20 years, with a representative sample of individuals from all walks of life. An effort should be made to track spending habit changes, which would inform us on the potential wider economic impact.
This is actually a really shitty test. Give wage slaves a year of guaranteed pay and of course they will take the year off, it's the only time in their lives they'll get a year-long vacation before they've gone senile. Basic income tests which don't last for life are invalid (to say nothing of their non-randomized selection of candidates.) This whole study was propaganda to keep plebs thinking they need to spend every waking hour of the good parts of their life working for someone other than themselves.
Year long vacation??? You are seriously overestimating what a luxurious al life you can lead on $695 dollars per month and it makes you sound like one of those clueless conservatives who think single mothers are living the high life on 7.25 dollars an hour working 16 hours a day 7 days a week while raising three kids. Speaking for myself 695 dollars per month would not even be enough to pay for rent or pay off the mortgage, even if I downgraded to a dirty cockroach paradise of a living space, not even close. If I wanted to prioritise not starving to death over paying off the mortgage on that UBI, I'd have to settle for housing in the form of a nice cardboard box under a bridge, that way, 695 dollars would do me fairly well for food, washing and clean clothes. If somebody held a gun to my head and made me choose between this $695 UBI, and working somewhere as a dish washer (instead of what I usually do, which is coding) I'd pick the dishwasher job in a heartbeat because even a crappy job like that just pays much better.
Sudden wealth that you're not used to dealing with is nowhere similar to handling a small sum that's less than average wage. You also don't suddenly have to deal with all the new "friends" that show up wanting a piece of the pie.
Just another day in Paradise
So why do we promote basic-income programs for younger, healthy people?
Because humans are a wee bit more complicated than animals, and have desires beyond mere survival.
The experiment showed the UBI group got jobs at the same rate as the control group. That means the program did not make those people lose their "foraging skills".
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You really should look into answers to your own questions as there is a great deal of accessible literature devoted to exactly this problem...unless of course you just want to bash UBI programs. If that is your intention, well done!
A UBI is not intended to fix drug addiction issues. If you want to address that problem, you should be looking at policies intended to do just that. The best policies I'm aware of are legalization of all recreational drugs and prescribing drugs as part of a universal healthcare system.
Most of the issues surrounding addiction are made much worse by current laws and enforcement strategies. The social costs to users and the people they victimize are almost completely eliminated through legalization by both prescribing and providing them with appropriate and safe drugs, including the very narcotics they are addicted to, as part of a treatment program.
Doesn't the US have an old age pension system? Aren't there a lot of parallels between such a system and a UBI? Isn't a pension system supported by tax dollars basically just a UBI for the elderly? Don't we see these systems as having an overwhelmingly positive effect?
I desperately want UBI rolled out as I see it massively increasing the efficiency of the work-force by removing the dead-weight... No. The negative weight. You know what I'm talking about: That guy who spends three quarters of his day wandering around talking to people and therefore wasting 1.5 equivalents of time.