Early Evidence Doesn’t Bode Well for Finland’s Basic Income Experiment | International Liberty

Early Evidence Doesn’t Bode Well for Finland’s Basic Income Experiment | International Liberty
"The notion that government should automatically give everyone money – a policy known as “universal basic income” – is now getting a lot of attention. 
...Simply stated, the math doesn’t work, people would have less incentive to work, and there would be “public choice” pressures to expand the size of the checks. 
...The New York Times published an in-depth preview of Finland’s experiment late last year. 
Here’s a description of the problem that Finnish policymakers want to solve.

…this city has…thousands of skilled engineers in need of work. Many were laid off by Nokia… 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.

For anyone who has studied the impact of redistribution programs on incentives to work, this hardly comes as a surprise.

Indeed, the story has both data and anecdotes to illustrate how the Finnish welfare state is subsidizing idleness.

In the five years after suffering a job loss, a Finnish family of four that is eligible for housing assistance receives average benefits equal to 73 percent of previous wages..."

Read on!