Free Cash in Finland. Must Be Jobless.

[inanna]

DEC. 17, 2016

Finland will soon hand out cash to 2,000
jobless people, free of bureaucracy or limits
on side earnings. The idea, universal basic
income, is gaining traction worldwide.

OULU, Finland — No one would confuse this frigid corner of northern Finland with Silicon Valley. Notched in low pine forests just 100 miles below the Arctic Circle, Oulu seems more likely to achieve dominance at herding reindeer than at nurturing technology start-ups.

But this city has roots as a hub for wireless communications, and keen aspirations in innovation. It also has thousands of skilled engineers in need of work. Many were laid off by Nokia, the Finnish company once synonymous with mobile telephones and more recently at risk of fading into oblivion.

While entrepreneurs are eager to put these people to work, the rules of Finland’s generous social safety net effectively discourage this. Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. For laid-off workers from Nokia, simply collecting a guaranteed unemployment check often presents a better financial proposition than taking a leap with a start-up in Finland, where a shaky technology industry is trying to find its footing again.

Now, the Finnish government is exploring how to change that calculus, initiating an experiment in a form of social welfare: universal basic income. Early next year, the government plans to randomly select roughly 2,000 unemployed people — from white-collar coders to blue-collar construction workers. It will give them benefits automatically, absent bureaucratic hassle and minus penalties for amassing extra income.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/business/economy/universal-basic-income-finland.html

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

1. The wave of the future...

Technology seems to be eliminating jobs faster than we can create them, and universal basic income seems to be the wave of the future as we deal with a basic fact...there are going to be fewer jobs on planet earth than people to fill them. Even the fast food industry is implementing more and more ways to eliminate people from the production system.

[yurbud]

2. guaranteed minimum income has worked for the children of the rich for as long as money's been around