FINLAND
Befits Denied
Finland has decided to scrap Europe’s first national, government-backed experiment with basic income, which has been running in a pilot program since January 2017.
The government turned down a request from Kela, the Finnish social security agency, for additional funds to add a group of employees to the pilot, which granted a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people a monthly stipend of 560 euros (about $683), the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported. It also said payments to the current participants will end next January.
Interestingly, the elimination of the program isn’t Finland’s only move toward tough love. It has also introduced legislation making some unemployment benefits contingent on the recipients undergoing skills training or working at least 18 hours out of every three months, the paper said.
The experiment was intended to determine if a guaranteed basic income might actually encourage people to seek work by providing a basic level of security. But it was neither long enough nor comprehensive enough to shed much light on how such a scheme might work in reality, analysts said.
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