Finland’s Basic Income Test Wasn’t Ambitious Enough
The payments encouraged beneficiaries to take work that doesn’t pay a living wage.
Don’t get too relaxed
Photographer: Frank Rumpenhorst/AFP/Getty Images
KELA, the Finnish social security agency, has failed to secure the funding it needs to extend its universal basic income experiment beyond this year. Although it’s sad that this grand leftist idea is suffering another setback, Finland’s trial effort deserved its fate.
Before the experiment was approved by the government in 2016, KELA officials talked of paying 800 euros ($974) a month in unconditional income to a test group of working-age citizens. But by the time the program began early last year, the amount was whittled down to 560 euros: If extended to the whole country, the cost of the earlier proposal would have exceeded the Finnish government’s entire revenue. A similarly impractical approach led to the failure of a 2016 Swiss referendum on offering a payout of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,540).