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Finald plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month

Kelfuma

Kelfuma

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Finland plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month - Quartz

The Finnish government is currently drawing up plans to introduce a national basic income. A final proposal won’t be presented until November 2016, but if all goes to schedule, Finland will scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out 800 euros per month—to everyone.

It sounds far-fetched, but it’s looking likely that Finland will carry through with the idea. Whereas several Dutch cities will introduce basic income next year and Switzerland is holding a referendum on the subject, there is strongest political and public support for the idea in Finland.
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I think this is an excellent idea. I look forward to seeing how this will work out .
 
Kelfuma said:
Finland plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month - Quartz



I think this is an excellent idea. I look forward to seeing how this will work out .
Click to expand...

This is brilliant. Legions of bureaucrats will be out of work. No more incentive to game welfare. No more cheating on disability. No more carping about unemployment. No more nonsense with unemployment being extended again and again. Disincentives to working would be removed.

Giving everyone $870 a month in the US would cost $3.4 trillion a year and would replace 2 trillion in transfer payments. Of course, those above a certain income would not be getting net support from the government.

One thing to consider would be the effect on birth rates. If every new child is another $870 a month ...
 
Kelfuma said:
Finland plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month - Quartz



I think this is an excellent idea. I look forward to seeing how this will work out .
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Good for them.

This is a far better idea than means-based social programs, as long as it's coupled with workable national healthcare (& Finland's healthcare is amongst the world's best).

This essentially means they can dump their other social programs.

And they'll have a work incentive based safety net, rather than the work disincentive means-based programs we have.

I wish we had something like this, along with a quality universal single-payer healthcare system, rather than the partial single-payer systems collage we now have.
 
LowDown said:
This is brilliant. Legions of bureaucrats will be out of work. No more incentive to game welfare. No more cheating on disability. No more carping about unemployment. No more nonsense with unemployment being extended again and again. Disincentives to working would be removed.

Giving everyone $870 a month in the US would cost $3.4 trillion a year and would replace 2 trillion in transfer payments. Of course, those above a certain income would not be getting net support from the government.

One thing to consider would be the effect on birth rates. If every new child is another $870 a month ...
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You've pretty well described the thrust of all this.

I'm not familiar with the exact implementation, but it would seem to me minors wouldn't/shouldn't receive the full amount, at least if I was implementing this.

I could see a child allowance of some fixed percentage, maybe something like 20%? Just a WAG on my part.
 
Beaudreaux said:
No more need to work.

What could go wrong?
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Not no need to work, but safety from starvation + incentive to work if possible.

Current means-based systems strongly disincentify work.
 
Chomsky said:
Not no need to work, but safety from starvation & incentive to work if possible.
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For those that do not care, there is no incentive at all now. Some of the questions not addressed in the article: how is it financed (who pays); is the guaranteed income from the government taxed, because if it is, that kills the supposed purpose; is it taxed for those that have additional income, because that would be the same disincentive that exists now, and; will this replace all other programs, meaning that if you don't mange your money properly, the government is off the hook and you screwed yourself?

Chomsky said:
Current means-based systems strongly disincentify work.
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Totally agree.
 
Beaudreaux said:
For those that do not care, there is no incentive at all now. Some of the questions not addressed in the article: how is it financed (who pays); is the guaranteed income from the government taxed, because if it is, that kills the supposed purpose; is it taxed for those that have additional income, because that would be the same disincentive that exists now, and; will this replace all other programs, meaning that if you don't mange your money properly, the government is off the hook and you screwed yourself?

Totally agree.
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You raise some excellent questions.

I can shed light on one: in the article it appears to state they are eliminating their other programs.

"but if all goes to schedule, Finland will scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out 800 euros per month—to everyone."

The big deal with this will be: "Will the money saved from ditching the existing programs pay for this new program?"

Because if it does, then there's absolutely no doubt in my mind this is the way to go, and it will hopefully increase legit employment.
 
Heinrich said:
I envy the Finns.
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Not just the Finns, but the Scandinavian countries generally have the highest quality of life in the world.

At least as measured by most western barometers.
 
Kelfuma said:
Finland plans to give every citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month - Quartz



I think this is an excellent idea. I look forward to seeing how this will work out .
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Ahem:

One of the major downsides, of course, is the cost of handing out money to every single citizen. Liisa Hyssälä, director general of Kela, has said that the plan will save the government millions. But, as Bloomberg calculated, giving 800 euros of basic income to the population of 5.4 million every month would cost 52.2 billion euros a year. The government expects to have 49.1 billion euros revenue in 2016.
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LOL. Im beginning to wonder if socialists even know how to count.
 
PoS said:
Ahem:



LOL. Im beginning to wonder if socialists even know how to count.
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count like a conservative you mean? when they "spend money" it goes back into the system and then taxed again, and again.
 
PoS said:
Ahem:



LOL. Im beginning to wonder if socialists even know how to count.
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Well, if Finland is saying their program is going to save them millions, and Bloomberg is guesstimating they're wrong, I think we'd have to give more credence to the insiders actually crunching the numbers and putting the program in place.

Basic Income systems I've seen don't give full income (if at all) to minors, so that may be why Bloomberg's numbers differs from Finland's (just surmising).

But it's interesting to see an experiment like this.
 
dimensionallava said:
count like a conservative you mean? when they "spend money" it goes back into the system and then taxed again, and again.
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-_-....

He stated the money going back into the system... which is 52.2 billion a year... that's not going to magically change...
 
celticwar17 said:
-_-....

He stated the money going back into the system... which is 52.2 billion a year... that's not going to magically change...
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well first of all not everyone in finland would need the $800 per month so, that number is not important either way. Second of all they are not spending money on something, theyre distributing the money so that it improves gdp, most people will spend every cent of that $800 by the end of the month so every single business will see an increase in revenue and therefore an increase in taxes.
 
dimensionallava said:
well first of all not everyone in finland would need the $800 per month so, that number is not important either way. Second of all they are not spending money on something, theyre distributing the money so that it improves gdp, most people will spend every cent of that $800 by the end of the month so every single business will see an increase in revenue and therefore an increase in taxes.
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Where do you think that money is now?.... you aren't adding 800$ to the economy that wasn't there before.
 
celticwar17 said:
Where do you think that money is now?.... you aren't adding 800$ to the economy that wasn't there before.
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the government is not a business, its not meant to earn a profit, you can measure which government spending programs add money to gdp, programs for the poor like food stamps and unemployment insurance add over $1.50 to gdp for every dollar spent while programs like tax cuts for businesses add $0.33 per dollar spent

The industry research firm Moody's Economy.com tracked the potential impact of each stimulus dollar, looking at tax rebates, tax incentives for business, food stamps and expanding unemployment benefits.
The report found that "some provide a lot of bang for the buck to the economy. Others ... don't," said economist Mark Zandi.
In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.
"If someone who is literally living paycheck to paycheck gets an extra dollar, it's very likely that they will spend that dollar immediately on whatever they need - groceries, to pay the telephone bill, to pay the electric bill," he said.
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Food stamps offer best stimulus - study - Jan. 29, 2008
 
dimensionallava said:
the government is not a business, its not meant to earn a profit, you can measure which government spending programs add money to gdp, programs for the poor like food stamps and unemployment insurance add over $1.50 to gdp for every dollar spent while programs like tax cuts for businesses add $0.33 per dollar spent

Food stamps offer best stimulus - study - Jan. 29, 2008
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The economist said it himself his reason for why the tax cuts contributed less..."it takes longer for businesses to implement any benefit received"

It takes longer.... but that, in no way, means it doesn't benefit the GDP as a whole over a larger period of time... It makes perfect sense injecting money to those that will spend it faster would grant faster temporary GDP boost, but it offers less long term growth.

AND regardless of that... no matter the GDP increase, it is not enough to offset the spending ANYWAY!!!!!
 
celticwar17 said:
AND regardless of that... no matter the GDP increase, it is not enough to offset the spending ANYWAY!!!!!
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If you think that then you obviously have no idea how global economics works. This is not some crazy new idea the thought of providing a minimum income goes back centuries The swiss are trying to provide a $2500 per month guaranteed minimum income, the dutch will be starting a similar program soon. if the swiss can afford $2500 per month then norway can afford $800 if anything the biggest problem is that they're not providing a high enough guaranteed minimum income

even thomas paine one of the founding fathers wrote extensively about the concept

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_Justice
 
dimensionallava said:
If you think that then you obviously have no idea how global economics works. This is not some crazy new idea the thought of providing a minimum income goes back centuries The swiss are trying to provide a $2500 per month guaranteed minimum income, the dutch will be starting a similar program soon. if the swiss can afford $2500 per month then norway can afford $800 if anything the biggest problem is that they're not providing a high enough guaranteed minimum income

even thomas paine one of the founding fathers wrote extensively about the concept

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_Justice
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It is not so obvious....actually... there are many well respected intelligent economists that clash on these very ideas constantly... but, it's no surprise that the Communist thinks he's the smartest man in the room.
 
Paleocon said:
So now they don't need to work. Hello social ruin.
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They don't need to work, but they will want to. Especially if they don't lose the 800 euros a month if they get a job.

The way it is in the US now if a single mother on welfare gets a job she loses a lot of government money. Hence these people never get a job. And, yes, that is leading to social ruin.
 
LowDown said:
They don't need to work, but they will want to. Especially if they don't lose the 800 euros a month if they get a job.

The way it is in the US now if a single mother on welfare gets a job she loses a lot of government money. Hence these people never get a job. And, yes, that is leading to social ruin.
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Then just remove the employment cliff. Or just add work requirements to the welfare.
 
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