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Finland’s Universal Basic Income Experiment Failed To Put More People Back To Work
Hotair ^
| 02/09/2019
| John Sexton
Posted on 02/09/2019 7:07:46 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Finland’s Social Insurance Institution just released results from a two-year experiment with Universal Basic Income. The plan was simple. Instead of only giving unemployment benefits to people who are out of work, Finland would randomly select 2,000 people who would receive a monthly payment whether or not they worked. This guaranteed income was supposed to encourage people receiving it to take more jobs or even start new businesses. But that’s not what happened. From the official press release:
On the basis of an analysis of register data on an annual level, we can say that during the first year of the experiment the recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market, says Ohto Kanninen, Research Coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research.
The recipients of a basic income had on average 0.5 days more in employment than the control group. The average number of days in employment during the year was 49.64 days for the recipients of a basic income and 49.25 for the control group.
The proportion that had had earnings or income from self-employment was approximately one percentage point higher for the recipients of a basic income than for the control group (43.70% and 42.85%). Then again, the amount of earnings and income from self-employment was on average 21 euros lower for the recipients of a basic income than for the control group (4,230 and 4,251).
There are two caveats here that need to be mentioned. The first is that while this two-year experiment is now over, the assessment of the data is taking place with a one-year delay. In other words, this conclusion is based on just the first half of the data that was collected. The final comprehensive results including year two of this experiment won’t be released until early 2020. So, if you’re a fan of UBI, you might hold out hope that year two will be better. The second caveat is that while the experiment didn’t produce any significant changes in employment or earnings, it did make people receiving the payments feel a bit better:
According to the survey, the recipients of a basic income perceived their wellbeing as being better than did the control group. 55% of the recipients of a basic income and 46% of the control group perceived their state of health as good or very good. 17% of the recipients of a basic income and 25% of the control group experienced quite a high degree or a very high degree of stress.
The recipients of a basic income had less stress symptoms as well as less difficulties to concentrate and less health problems than the control group. They were also more confident in their future and in their ability to influence societal issues, says Minna Ylikännö, Lead Researcher at Kela.
I find this exasperating. I’ve written about Universal Basic Income experiments before and it annoys me that researchers feel this is a significant area of study. Was there really any serious chance that free money would make people feel worse? Why can’t we just stipulate up front that free money makes people happy? But no, it’s always treated as if this were an important and unexpected result of these experiments.
But the bottom line here is that this did not produce the results that its supporters hoped it would. That seems like a significant and timely result given that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just proposed some sort of UBI as part of her Green New Deal and most of the Democratic candidates for president have already signed on to it. We may already be at the point where UBI is a goal of the Democratic Party.
There’s a good video summary of the results here but it’s not embeddable so you’ll have to click over to see it. BBC also did a story which tracked a couple of recipients over the two years of the experiment. Their individual experiences seem to track pretty well with the reported results, i.e. it didn’t really help them work more but it made them feel good:
Finally, I found this compilation clip interesting. This is four different peopleElon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris, and Jordan Peterson talking about UBI. Musk seems to think it’s inevitable. Shapiro takes more of a wait-and-see approach. Both Musk and Peterson suggest the real problem with the idea is that work provides people with something like meaning which can’t be replaced with a government check:
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR ALL THE VIDEOS
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: basicincome; delusionalsystem; eurabia; europeanunion; finland; helicoptermoney; jobs; socialism; ubi; universalbasicincome; work
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To: SeekAndFind
2
posted on
02/09/2019 7:09:41 PM PST
by
null and void
(Hey AOC? If socialism is so grand, why are Guatemalans coming here instead of going to Venezuela?)
To: SeekAndFind
Click the Pic
3
posted on
02/09/2019 7:14:42 PM PST
by
Fiddlstix
(Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
To: null and void
The Swiss collectively have more common sense than most of Europe.
In 2016, there was a referendum pushed by liberals that called for adults to be paid an unconditional monthly income, whether they worked or not.
The supporters camp had suggested a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs (USD $2,555) for adults and also SFr625 for each child.
The amounts reflected the high cost of living in Switzerland. It is not clear how the plan would have affected people on higher salaries.
The supporters had also argued that since work was increasingly automated, fewer jobs were available for workers.
The Swiss OVERWHELMINGLY rejected it 77% to 23%.
I bet New York and California would actually VOTE for such a proposal with a similar referendum ever came up.
4
posted on
02/09/2019 7:30:21 PM PST
by
SeekAndFind
(look at Michigan, it will)
To: SeekAndFind
My SIL has been given all her living expenses for over 40 years, most of them from her parents and now from the government. She has not worked at all over those years.
I wonder if these “researchers” would care to see the results? Every bit as bad as you can imagine. One of her 4 husbands did not work for 10 years - no need to obviously. When they divorced, he got a job within a week and has worked continuously since.
Hunger is a great motivator.
5
posted on
02/09/2019 7:35:31 PM PST
by
ChildOfThe60s
(If you can remember the 60's....You weren't really there)
To: SeekAndFind
You may be right and that’s idiotic to do for any state.
But you that revel being in red states should also check to see what states give MORE to the fed govt than get.
A bunch of southern red states take a LOT MORE than they give.
NY gives MORE than they GET.
I’d say that makes those states “welfare states”, the whole population.
THAT’S a terrible thing.
6
posted on
02/09/2019 7:37:10 PM PST
by
dp0622
(The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
To: ChildOfThe60s
RE: One of her 4 husbands did not work for 10 years
What did they live on? I mean what kind of program did they qualify for that pays the rent, food, clothing, travel and the big one -— HOUSING ?
7
posted on
02/09/2019 7:37:12 PM PST
by
SeekAndFind
(look at Michigan, it will)
To: SeekAndFind
8
posted on
02/09/2019 7:39:58 PM PST
by
dp0622
(The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
To: SeekAndFind
One suggestion was made in a speculative fiction story I read many years ago, in that everyone, at birth, was endowed with a certain number of stock shares, selected from among those traded on the NYSE or other widely recognized bourses, and they derived a basic income from the return on those shares. If they wanted more than the pittance that return paid, they were encouraged to go into some kind of entrepreneurship, and CREATE a viable company, which would then make an Initial Public Offering, and rather than purchase of the shares for speculation, the shares were distributed to the new arrivals on the planet as they were in turn endowed with a basic number of shares for subsistence.
The ownership rights in the stock holdings were the source of the cash flow that supported all the population, not the taxation and distribution by the central government.
9
posted on
02/09/2019 7:56:20 PM PST
by
alloysteel
(History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. - Winston Churchill)
To: dp0622
Are you speaking in terms of number of dollars or percentage of total dollars?
10
posted on
02/09/2019 7:58:20 PM PST
by
coaster123
(Bring back the curtsy.)
To: SeekAndFind
It makes the recipients happy oh. But what about all the donors, working so these folks dont? What about their happiness?
11
posted on
02/09/2019 8:09:46 PM PST
by
Persevero
(Desmond is not -Amazing- Desmond is -Abused-)
To: SeekAndFind
Her mother bought her a house and gave her money. When she got a new car she gave her old one.
On the positive side, she never gave her (and the deadbeat hubby) more than just enough to eat & keep the power on. pretty bare existence. Yet, neither would get any sort of a job.
12
posted on
02/09/2019 8:15:22 PM PST
by
ChildOfThe60s
(If you can remember the 60's....You weren't really there)
To: SeekAndFind
Yahoo free money. No working for me. Really great judges of the majority of humans. A half decent psychologist could have given you the percentages before you even started. It’s all butterflies and rainbows in some people’s heads.
13
posted on
02/09/2019 8:18:41 PM PST
by
melsec
(There's a track, winding back, to an old forgotten shack along the road to Gundagai..)
Oh yeah...the govn gives me free money so I think I will run out and get a job.../s
14
posted on
02/09/2019 8:25:49 PM PST
by
TnTnTn
To: SeekAndFind
Hmmm, they’re gonna pay us for doing nothing. What do you say we go out tomorrow and look for a job. Nah? Ah, okay. Maybe next month.
To: Persevero
But what about all the donors, working so these folks dont?"Donors," you call them! That's rich!
They're tax-slaves.
Regards,
16
posted on
02/10/2019 1:35:58 AM PST
by
alexander_busek
(Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
To: SeekAndFind
Wow! do ya think? Are they stupid or are we stupid for believing their stupid
To: SeekAndFind
osh - give people free stuff and they don’t voluntarily work for that which they can get for free....I’m shocked!
18
posted on
02/10/2019 3:59:16 AM PST
by
trebb
(Don't howl about illegal leeches while not donating to FR - it's hypocritical.)
To: SeekAndFind
Stupidity always wins over common sense. This will be proposed again and again, and they will claim that the Finn thing worked.
It is a colossaly stupid idea, and anyone who proposes it is an idiot.
19
posted on
02/10/2019 5:11:49 AM PST
by
I want the USA back
(Lying Media: willing and eager allies of the hate-America left.)
To: SeekAndFind
Amazing, a person who is getting money monthly is not going to seek work. Democrats, who will work, if you give every citizens $2400 a month? As my friend and I were discussing it, we both would shut our businesses (he is a general contractor with 14 people employed) and I’m a computer services with 10 employees and take our families boating...
20
posted on
02/10/2019 6:21:28 AM PST
by
Deplorable American1776
(Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
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