Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Finns May Get Paid for Being Finns

Government moves ahead with plans to replace benefits with a basic income.

November 3, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

More time for this.
Photographer: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images)

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Finland could become the first country to introduce a universal basic income.

An official at the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, said last week that each Finn could receive 800 euros ($876) a month, tax free, that would replace existing benefits. Full implementation would be preceded by a pilot stage, during which the basic income payout would be 550 euros and some benefits would remain.