Small trial of paperless unemployment pay in Finland

[StatGuy2000]

Based on the news link provided by the OP, the program that is about to be implemented by Finnish government sounds similar to the Mincome program that was set up by the province of Manitoba in Canada back in the 1970s. The details of the program can be found in the following Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

The Wikipedia article also summarizes some of the research of the post-Mincome data. The summary is that the labour supply responses were generally small, with working hours dropping about 1% for men, 3% for married women, and 5% for unmarried women, with only working mothers and teenagers working substantially less. Some of the results of further analysis by University of Manitoba Evelyn Forget found that the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5% (with fewer instances of workplace injuries and fewer ER visits from injuries and accidents), reduction of psychiatric hospitalization and the number of mental health-related consultations (see links in the Wikipedia article).

My personal take is that, at least initially, there seems to be benefits to having a guaranteed universal basic income to mitigate the effects of poverty (with the emphasis to the word "seems"). However, given the relatively short duration of the program of Mincome, and the fact that the program was implemented in a relatively rural area of Canada, it is difficult to make any real conclusions on the effectiveness of such programs.

I would be interested to see what both the short-term and long-term impacts of the program being implemented in Finland over the coming years -- could be fertile grounds for research by economists, sociologists, and others.

 

[OmCheeto]

Interesting interview with one of the advocates:

Finland: Interview with Tapani Karvinen, from the Pirate party
Jan 5, 2017 Toru Yamamori

...
Q: Have you talked about UBI with your family and old friends? What do they say?

A: My parents have both owned small business and they do understand how UBI would make their lives less stressful, especially in those silent months, when income is not guaranteed.
...​

There is of course more to the interview, but I thought that was a good point, which I hadn't thought about.

Also, some background from the Finnish government, without all the media embellishment:

Ministry of Social Affairs and Health requests opinions on a basic income experiment
25.8.2016
...
In a nutshell
Basic income experiment in 2017–2018

• Goal: To obtain information on the effects of basic income on the employment of persons participating in the experiment, and to survey other impacts of basic income.
• Level of basic income: EUR 560 €/month, tax free benefit. According to calculations, this should produce an adequate incentive effect encouraging to accept temporary and part-time work.
• Target group: Persons between 25 and 58 years of age living in Finland who in November 2016 receive basic daily allowance or labour market support under the Unemployment Security Act.

...​

That was from August, so some things may have changed.