Press

The newly elected centre-left government in Finland is expected to give the basic income experiment that recently failed a second chance. The country’s Social Insurance Institution is currently drafting a report on a pilot project for a basic minimum income that will be published next spring. The policy will test 2,000 randomly-selected unemployed participants who will be given a no-strings-attached monthly payment of €560 to see if it encourages them to find work. The initial analysis suggests that the experiment did not boost employment but did improve overall health and provided data for bolder experiments such as a negative income tax. According to Finland’s public news agency, Helsinki is now considering extending the programme to include different target groups – stay-at-home parents and students – to see how a basic income affects people doing jobs that they perhaps do not want to do or earn very little. - New Europe -