Back around a year ago, I essayed a couple of times over the idea of Basic Income, and the Finland experiment. In simple terms, at the end, it was deemed a failure. It won't be coming back....at least in Finland. So what happened?
The government elected to do an experiment....2k unemployed Finns....getting their regular unemployment check, and then 560 Euro of Basic Income on top of that.
The idea was.....you'd go and invest in some small business idea, get a certification, or do something of value for the money.
The PhD folks overseeing this? They just needed needed to see evidence of a plus-situation at the end.
It ran for two years.
Failure? More or less.
Did they screw up the process? I read over several articles, and they did two unusual things with the process. One....you had to be long-term unemployed (meaning more than a year). Two....you had to be young....meaning under the age of 30.
Should they have offered coaching to the 2k? You could suggest this. Would the 2k have accepted the coaching? Well....that's an unknown factor. If this had been mostly all people from age 30 to 50? That might have changed the outcome.
The odds of another experiment? I'm guessing at least three or four European countries are writing the script, and intend to do something to prove that it can be made to work. Some might even go far enough to bump the 560 Euro up to 2k Euro as part of the test.
I have marginal enthusiasm for Basic Income....unless you attach some major coaching element to it and tell the individual that this is not a permanent deal....either you gain something or you prove the case that it's a failure.
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