Finland’s center-right government, headed by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, wants to see if an unconditional basic income would encourage Finns to take low-paid or part-time jobs that don’t pay off for them under the country’s current welfare rules.
Right now many unemployed Finns are caught in “incentive traps,” where working leaves them worse off than staying on social assistance.
Ollie Kangas, director of government and community relations at
KELA, the government agency that handles all sorts of public benefits, He is leading the basic income experiment.
“In the present system they are a little bit afraid of accepting job offers, say, for two months or three months, because they think that, okay, how much would I benefit, in terms of money?” Kangas said. They are also nervous about re-qualifying for unemployment once a temporary job ends. “So they’re afraid of bureaucracy and they’re afraid of losing that income stream,” he said.
“Now, unemployment benefits are conditional on you looking for work,” Kärkkäinen said.
“With basic income, you get it even though you don’t look for work, if you stay at home, if you go to work some more. That’s a thing I’m looking forward to most. How making benefits unconditional will affect the choices people make.”
Right now Finland is one of the most generous welfare states in the world, with universal healthcare, free college, four months paid maternity leave and many other benefits. As seen in the chart below, government spending to GDP stood at around 58 percent in 2014. Spending on "social protection" like unemployment and old age pensions was around 25 percent. But the country’s population is aging and growth is sluggish. The government has started to cut back benefits and hopes a basic income could act in lieu of many benefits the poor currently get.
In Finland, government spending to GDP has averaged 49.94 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. That spending includes generous benefits for the unemployed. - courtesy Eurostat, Nordea
Liberals in Finland, currently out of power, want to set a basic income at a much higher level than conservatives. But even they can see advantages to streamlining the vast maze of Finland’s overlapping social benefits, especially for the poor who have to navigate it. Teivo Teivainen, a professor of political science at the University of Helsinki, said theoretically, if an unconditional basic income replaced a handful of other benefits, "Your life would be clearly be less stressful and more free, in that sense.”
Most Finns tell pollsters they support a universal basic income, but at 1,000 Euros a month, not 600, like in the pilot. That’s about $1,055 a month, or $12,660 a year.
When informed of the steep tax hikes required, however, they balk. Apparently even the generous Finns have their limits.
Wasnt Ghadaffi already doing this...
Yet another Idea white people are jacking and putting some Fancy initials on it
