5 ms·

Finland Has Second Thoughts About Giving Free Money to Jobless People

10 points by DEFCON28 8y ago

test6554 8y ago
If the goal was to head off job losses from automation, then the work requirement should have been in place, but it should have somehow scaled up and down proportionally with the number of unfilled jobs in the country.
guidedlight 8y ago
I thought the point of universal income was that everyone gets it regardless of their employment. Finland just gave the money to unemployed people, so it just became an unemployment benefit.
- mistercow 8y ago
  Yes, that's partly true (although recipients don't appear to lose the benefit if they become employed), but what they're studying is a specific question, which is how giving unemployed people an unconditional stipend affects their future employment. They're not trying to study broader aspects of UBI, and I'd argue that if they wanted to do so, making the experiment much longer term would be more important than applying it to more people.
  - mrfusion 8y ago
    They should also measure their health and happiness. Employment isn’t the full Picture.
    - mistercow 8y ago
      Sure, a study should measure that. But not every study has to measure every variable.
      - dingaling 8y ago
        This study should have, since those are key metrics for UBI in a projected robotics-era of job scarcity. Since it didn't measure them it is pointless classifying it as a test of UBI.
        mistercow 8y ago
        No, it's not pointless. It just studies one aspect of the problem. Yes, this is insufficient on its own, but more studies can be done, which can be designed particularly to examine the other questions that need to be answered. A test for lead is usefully classified as a water quality test, even though you need to test for other compounds as well before you know if the water is safe.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- randyrand 8y ago
  Not everyone gets it, even with proper UBI. Anyone with a job making more than X amount will be losing more money due to additional taxes than gained from their UBI cheque. But if UBI was self funded (endowment system) we could fix that problem.
  - mrfusion 8y ago
    Explain how it could be self funded? Sounds too good to be true.
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      I think this might be what they mean: Has anyone explored the idea of funding UBI with bequests? Similar to how a university builds up an endowment via donations, and that endowment funds the day to day operations of the university, we could start a "UBI endowment" and encourage people to leave money to it when they pass. It would pay out very little at first, but over time think (50-100 years) we might accumulate enough wealth in the endowment to provide a healthy basic income. Income accrues to the owners of capital. Currently, the world's capital is held very unevenly. Over time, humanity as a whole should become the owners and beneficiaries of its capital. Bequests to a UBI endowment could be a fairly apolitical, non-radical, non-disruptive way to slowly make this important transition. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/6lnumz/funding_a_ubi_endowment_with_bequests/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/6lnumz/funding...
- ImSkeptical 8y ago
  I don't think that can be true realistically. Some people have to lose money in order for "universal income" to work. It may look sightly different if middle and upper class people "get" 12k a year, while having to pay the UBI tax of 20-30k a year (or whatever the numbers are) but on net it should be no different. Until we have robots doing all work that are publicly owned, someone will have to be losing, on net, with UBI.
mistercow 8y ago
According to at least one researcher involved with the project, this is basically what was expected all along. It was planned to be a one year trial, and now the year is up and they'll analyze the results before deciding what to do next. Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-income-results-trial-cancelled http://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-incom...
- hackits 8y ago
  Somebody has to pay and the people who would pay the most would be the working class citizens who add value to the economy.
- ihodes 8y ago
  I believe it was supposed to run for two years. They ended it a year early. (First source that pops up: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/finland-experiments-universal-basic-income.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/finland-experiments-universa...)
  - mistercow 8y ago
    You're right that it was originally a two year plan, but they aren't terminating it a year early. It will still run for the full two years. As your link mentions, it launched at the beginning of 2017, and the Wired article mentions, it will run until the end of 2018. What's happened recently is that they declined to extend it past two years.
    - ihodes 8y ago
      No, they explicitly made this a conditional handout this year, which is very much a termination of the original plan. UBI researchers have generally considered this a failure already (not to mention that many economists think UBI cannot work, anyway). "Finland has actually reversed course on that front this year, adopting rules that threaten to cut benefits for jobless people unless they actively look for work or engage in job training."
qwerty456127 8y ago
The idea that everybody must work and people that don't are a kind of evil, that everybody must sacrifice something (even when nobody actually needs it) to justify their fundamental needs being fulfilled (even if it doesn't actually cost anything) is itself a fundamental evil. The real virtue of economic development is setting everybody free.
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  Someone has to work to pay for those who don’t or can’t. There needs to be a balance. people who can work, but choose not to may end up messing it up for those who really can’t work.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    Robots!
- aethertap 8y ago
  I probably have an unpopular view on this, but this isn't the point for me. I don't think people are evil for not working. In fact, if I could manage it, I'd skip it myself. Working is hard work, and I'd prefer to do less of it. The problem I have is that, in order to have productive output to give away, somebody has to work to produce it. If that somebody is me, and I'm producing enough for myself and another person+, then that means I have to work that much more to fund it. It chafes me to realize that I'm missing time with my family and friends in order to work for output that I don't even need. I'm not an absolutist about it, and I'm happy to help people who need the help. However, I think it's reasonable to expect people who are able to pull their own weight. + just for the sake of simplicity, hopefully in a real system the fraction I'm supporting is less than one Edit: Formatting
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    I get your point but AFAIK there actually are many people annoyed by the mere idea that some people wouldn't work and would just enjoy their free time while they work, but as for me if I were producing (voluntarily and without working too hard preferably) a lot more productive output than I need myself I would absolutely not mind if the rest was distributed among other people and I would not care whether they work or not. I would actually be more happy to know that the people my work feeds just attend a university, do art or just have fun rather tan that they spend their lives on a chair in a government-funded office doing some useless paperwork to justify getting what they get. As far as I understand modern production technologies may need rather humble number of humans to produce amounts of goods enough for much much much more people so the situation when one man work yields enough to feed a thousand is not a fantasy. I actually doubt many people that actually do useful productive work do just the amount to feed themselves even if they are paid just the amount. And there also is a huge number of obstacles that can prevent people from doing what they are good at or anything useful at all. In many countries and in many areas people still have to compete to get a job even if they are willing to work. A coder can be denied a job for not smiling enough, being bad at solving puzzles or having a degree less fancy than another applicant has. Will to do a job and will (and capability) to compete are very different things.
tnvaught 8y ago
"In much of the world, the concept of basic income retains appeal as a potential way to more justly spread the bounty of global capitalism while cushioning workers against the threat of robots and artificial intelligence taking their jobs." So, this is a funny way to acknowledge that global capitalism is really that good. Not only can it provide "bounty," but other, non-capitalist systems may be propped up by its success. It seems ironic that "justly spread" and "global capitalism" are in the same sentence, and not being contrasted.
branchless 8y ago
Is this about landlords getting state money for no work?
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  If they are making money and paying taxes, then, net, they aren’t getting state money for no work.
  - branchless 8y ago
    they are getting wealth creator's money and they are doing nothing for it as they are rentiers.
- CivilEngineer 8y ago
  No work? It's a lot of work to be a landlord!
nategri 8y ago
What a loaded headline. Get it together, NYT.
usr1106 8y ago
Yet another poorly researched article about this experiment. This has been a very limited experiment for only 2000 randomly selected participants (unemployed with certain restrictions). It has beem time-limited from the beginning. More critical observers have always said it is too small and too limited to produce useful data. Some claim it was designed to fail by the governmennt. But the international press has overhyped it with Finland giving away free money. Now nothing has really changed and no decisions were taken. No reports have been published and this had not been intended before the end of the trial. The so-called news is that the trial is not extended. But that's really a lack of news, an extension had never been planned. (I live in Finland)
grzm 8y ago
Past discussions on the topic on HN within the past week or so: - 7 days ago, 169 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874921 - 2 days ago, 36 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16910856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16910856 - 2 days ago, 45 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16909881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16909881 - 2 days ago, 27 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912072
lioeters 8y ago
Quoted from: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/contrary-to-reports-the-basic-income-experiment-in-finland-will-continue-until-the-end-of-2018 http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN0... Many international media-outlets have published stories alleging that Finland is going to discontinue its basic income experiment. This information is incorrect. “The experiment is proceeding according to plan and will continue until the end of 2018”, says Professor Olli Kangas, the leader of the research team at Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland).

10 points by DEFCON28 8y ago

If the goal was to head off job losses from automation, then the work requirement should have been in place, but it should have somehow scaled up and down proportionally with the number of unfilled jobs in the country.

guidedlight 8y ago

I thought the point of universal income was that everyone gets it regardless of their employment. Finland just gave the money to unemployed people, so it just became an unemployment benefit.

mistercow 8y ago
Yes, that's partly true (although recipients don't appear to lose the benefit if they become employed), but what they're studying is a specific question, which is how giving unemployed people an unconditional stipend affects their future employment. They're not trying to study broader aspects of UBI, and I'd argue that if they wanted to do so, making the experiment much longer term would be more important than applying it to more people.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  They should also measure their health and happiness. Employment isn’t the full Picture.
  - mistercow 8y ago
    Sure, a study should measure that. But not every study has to measure every variable.
    - dingaling 8y ago
      This study should have, since those are key metrics for UBI in a projected robotics-era of job scarcity. Since it didn't measure them it is pointless classifying it as a test of UBI.
      - mistercow 8y ago
        No, it's not pointless. It just studies one aspect of the problem. Yes, this is insufficient on its own, but more studies can be done, which can be designed particularly to examine the other questions that need to be answered. A test for lead is usefully classified as a water quality test, even though you need to test for other compounds as well before you know if the water is safe.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
randyrand 8y ago
Not everyone gets it, even with proper UBI. Anyone with a job making more than X amount will be losing more money due to additional taxes than gained from their UBI cheque. But if UBI was self funded (endowment system) we could fix that problem.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  Explain how it could be self funded? Sounds too good to be true.
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    I think this might be what they mean: Has anyone explored the idea of funding UBI with bequests? Similar to how a university builds up an endowment via donations, and that endowment funds the day to day operations of the university, we could start a "UBI endowment" and encourage people to leave money to it when they pass. It would pay out very little at first, but over time think (50-100 years) we might accumulate enough wealth in the endowment to provide a healthy basic income. Income accrues to the owners of capital. Currently, the world's capital is held very unevenly. Over time, humanity as a whole should become the owners and beneficiaries of its capital. Bequests to a UBI endowment could be a fairly apolitical, non-radical, non-disruptive way to slowly make this important transition. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/6lnumz/funding_a_ubi_endowment_with_bequests/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/6lnumz/funding...
ImSkeptical 8y ago
I don't think that can be true realistically. Some people have to lose money in order for "universal income" to work. It may look sightly different if middle and upper class people "get" 12k a year, while having to pay the UBI tax of 20-30k a year (or whatever the numbers are) but on net it should be no different. Until we have robots doing all work that are publicly owned, someone will have to be losing, on net, with UBI.

mistercow 8y ago

According to at least one researcher involved with the project, this is basically what was expected all along. It was planned to be a one year trial, and now the year is up and they'll analyze the results before deciding what to do next. Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-income-results-trial-cancelled http://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-incom...

hackits 8y ago
Somebody has to pay and the people who would pay the most would be the working class citizens who add value to the economy.
ihodes 8y ago
I believe it was supposed to run for two years. They ended it a year early. (First source that pops up: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/finland-experiments-universal-basic-income.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/finland-experiments-universa...)
- mistercow 8y ago
  You're right that it was originally a two year plan, but they aren't terminating it a year early. It will still run for the full two years. As your link mentions, it launched at the beginning of 2017, and the Wired article mentions, it will run until the end of 2018. What's happened recently is that they declined to extend it past two years.
  - ihodes 8y ago
    No, they explicitly made this a conditional handout this year, which is very much a termination of the original plan. UBI researchers have generally considered this a failure already (not to mention that many economists think UBI cannot work, anyway). "Finland has actually reversed course on that front this year, adopting rules that threaten to cut benefits for jobless people unless they actively look for work or engage in job training."

qwerty456127 8y ago

The idea that everybody must work and people that don't are a kind of evil, that everybody must sacrifice something (even when nobody actually needs it) to justify their fundamental needs being fulfilled (even if it doesn't actually cost anything) is itself a fundamental evil. The real virtue of economic development is setting everybody free.

WillPostForFood 8y ago
Someone has to work to pay for those who don’t or can’t. There needs to be a balance. people who can work, but choose not to may end up messing it up for those who really can’t work.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Robots!
aethertap 8y ago
I probably have an unpopular view on this, but this isn't the point for me. I don't think people are evil for not working. In fact, if I could manage it, I'd skip it myself. Working is hard work, and I'd prefer to do less of it. The problem I have is that, in order to have productive output to give away, somebody has to work to produce it. If that somebody is me, and I'm producing enough for myself and another person+, then that means I have to work that much more to fund it. It chafes me to realize that I'm missing time with my family and friends in order to work for output that I don't even need. I'm not an absolutist about it, and I'm happy to help people who need the help. However, I think it's reasonable to expect people who are able to pull their own weight. + just for the sake of simplicity, hopefully in a real system the fraction I'm supporting is less than one Edit: Formatting
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  I get your point but AFAIK there actually are many people annoyed by the mere idea that some people wouldn't work and would just enjoy their free time while they work, but as for me if I were producing (voluntarily and without working too hard preferably) a lot more productive output than I need myself I would absolutely not mind if the rest was distributed among other people and I would not care whether they work or not. I would actually be more happy to know that the people my work feeds just attend a university, do art or just have fun rather tan that they spend their lives on a chair in a government-funded office doing some useless paperwork to justify getting what they get. As far as I understand modern production technologies may need rather humble number of humans to produce amounts of goods enough for much much much more people so the situation when one man work yields enough to feed a thousand is not a fantasy. I actually doubt many people that actually do useful productive work do just the amount to feed themselves even if they are paid just the amount. And there also is a huge number of obstacles that can prevent people from doing what they are good at or anything useful at all. In many countries and in many areas people still have to compete to get a job even if they are willing to work. A coder can be denied a job for not smiling enough, being bad at solving puzzles or having a degree less fancy than another applicant has. Will to do a job and will (and capability) to compete are very different things.

tnvaught 8y ago

"In much of the world, the concept of basic income retains appeal as a potential way to more justly spread the bounty of global capitalism while cushioning workers against the threat of robots and artificial intelligence taking their jobs." So, this is a funny way to acknowledge that global capitalism is really that good. Not only can it provide "bounty," but other, non-capitalist systems may be propped up by its success. It seems ironic that "justly spread" and "global capitalism" are in the same sentence, and not being contrasted.

branchless 8y ago

Is this about landlords getting state money for no work?

WillPostForFood 8y ago
If they are making money and paying taxes, then, net, they aren’t getting state money for no work.
- branchless 8y ago
  they are getting wealth creator's money and they are doing nothing for it as they are rentiers.
CivilEngineer 8y ago
No work? It's a lot of work to be a landlord!

nategri 8y ago

What a loaded headline. Get it together, NYT.

usr1106 8y ago

Yet another poorly researched article about this experiment. This has been a very limited experiment for only 2000 randomly selected participants (unemployed with certain restrictions). It has beem time-limited from the beginning. More critical observers have always said it is too small and too limited to produce useful data. Some claim it was designed to fail by the governmennt. But the international press has overhyped it with Finland giving away free money. Now nothing has really changed and no decisions were taken. No reports have been published and this had not been intended before the end of the trial. The so-called news is that the trial is not extended. But that's really a lack of news, an extension had never been planned. (I live in Finland)

grzm 8y ago

Past discussions on the topic on HN within the past week or so: - 7 days ago, 169 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874921 - 2 days ago, 36 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16910856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16910856 - 2 days ago, 45 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16909881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16909881 - 2 days ago, 27 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912072

lioeters 8y ago

Quoted from: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/contrary-to-reports-the-basic-income-experiment-in-finland-will-continue-until-the-end-of-2018 http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN0... Many international media-outlets have published stories alleging that Finland is going to discontinue its basic income experiment. This information is incorrect. “The experiment is proceeding according to plan and will continue until the end of 2018”, says Professor Olli Kangas, the leader of the research team at Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland).