Posted: Dec 07, 2015 3:42 am
Keep It Real wrote:Basic income — the concept of giving people money with no strings attached— is having anything but a basic year.
Three months ago, the Dutch city of Utrecht announced it would launch a program to give people on welfare unconditional free money. The plan was so popular that it has spread to more than two dozen Dutch towns.
Now Finland wants in on the action.
The big difference: the country wants to give money to everybody, not just people on welfare.
Over the past decade, unemployment has risen drastically in the small Nordic country, home to just 5.4 million people.
In response, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, has proposed an experiment to allot a monthly income of 800 euros (or roughly $870) tax-free. The cash will act as a replacement for other social benefits like housing and income support, but people will get it whether they work or not.
http://www.techinsider.io/finlands-plan-to-give-everyone-free-money-2015-11
Good stuff imo - very progressive in a world where unemployment is on the rise due to automation.
That is a shocking article. Really poor "journalism" (deserving of scare quotes even).
One 2013 study showed implementing a basic income model for four years in Uganda led to people working 17% longer hours and receiving 38% higher earnings, mostly from the growth of small businesses.
That paragraph contains a link, to a study which shows absolutely nothing whatsoever about the proposed policy in Finland.
Given the average monthly income currently stands at just over 2,000 euros, a reduction to 800 might cause some to bristle at such a steep pay cut.
What does the average monthly income have to do with this policy? Absolutely nothing, why would it make people bristle when they aren't proposing to cut their pay?
Plus, there is legitimate uncertainty whether the Finnish government can keep everyone on its payroll. One estimate puts the cost at 52.2 billion euros a year, despite a projected yearly revenue of just 49.1 billion euros in 2016.
Legitimate criticism and the 52.2 billion might be right (although it looks as though this assumes the income is given to children as well as adults, which is far from clear, it's more likely the policy would cost around ~40bn Euros). I've no idea what the "projected yearly revenue" is either, total Finnish government tax receipts appear to be around 80bn, which would make that figure far too low and the policy itself surely can't be forecast to generate an additional 49.1bn Euros of revenue, or so I would think.
