Main Blog Page

Finland testing universal basic income for select unemployed

Finland testing universal basic income for select unemployed

Helsinki – Finland has become the first nation to pay some of its unemployed citizens an unconditional monthly universal basic income (UBI), a benefit that continues even after they find work.

Deutsche Welle reports beginning this month some 2,000 unemployed Finns will receive monthly payments of €560 ($584) with no strings attached. Recipients will pay no tax on the UBI, and the tax-free payments will continue even after they find jobs. They will be randomly chosen from a pool of 25-58 year-olds who received government unemployment benefits in November 2016. Marjukka Turunen, head of legal affairs for Kela, the Finnish […]

Finland Tries Out Basic Income

Finland Tries Out Basic Income

Finland’s Social Insurance Institution, or Kela, announced on Monday the launch of an experiment designed to test the potential effects of a universal basic income (UBI). Given that the program is in its earliest stages, however, it is far from "universal": 2,000 participants who were randomly selected from the country’s working-age (25 to 58), unemployed population will receive a basic income of €560 ($581) per month through the end of 2018.

Universal basic income is an old idea – Thomas Paine discussed it in the 18th century – but it has received renewed attention in recent years as automation threatens […]

Finland Testing Universal Basic Income for Select Unemployed

Finland Testing Universal Basic Income for Select Unemployed

A street in Helsinki, Finland. (Photo: Flickr Creative Commons) Finland has become the first nation to pay some of its unemployed citizens an unconditional monthly universal basic income (UBI), a benefit that continues even after they find work.

Deutsche Welle reports beginning this month some 2,000 unemployed Finns will receive monthly payments of €560 ($584) with no strings attached. Recipients will pay no tax on the UBI, and the tax-free payments will continue even after they find jobs. They will be randomly chosen from a pool of 25-58 year-olds who received government unemployment benefits in November 2016.

Marjukka Turunen, head of […]

John H Wolfe: Automation, globalization and Trump’s efforts

John H Wolfe: Automation, globalization and Trump's efforts

George Will’s column of December 29 (Making America 1953 again) sheds light on the United States’ diminishing manufacturing employment as well as the failure of government intervention to save manufacturing jobs.

Simply put, two factors are responsible for most of the manufacturing job loss since the 1950s. First, the U.S. was the only significant industrial economy that had not been devastated by World War II so there was little global competition for U.S. firms. Plants ran at full capacity and corporations were able to grant wage increases with the knowledge that they could pass on the cost to consumers. The […]

Digital Technologies for the Greater Good | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

Digital Technologies for the Greater Good | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

Adam Smith wrote about rational self-interest, which posits we work together for the greater good when it benefits ourselves. Does this concept translate to robots, automation and employment? I think it does.

I believe most of us would agree that replacing large numbers of humans with machines that result in wide scale unemployment and suffering is not in our rational self-interest. Having massive numbers of jobs terminated by the Terminator does not result in a safer, healthier civilization or vibrant economy; therefore, it is not in our best interest.

Just because something is possible, does not mean it is good. A […]

Trump’s Job Promise – Can He Build A Wall Around Automation?

Trump’s Job Promise - Can He Build A Wall Around Automation?

Moving through the 21st Century, automation, not aliens, has been the driving force in unemployment. Trump waived his magic “wall” wand over his rust-belt Cinderellas that eked out an electoral win with fears of minorities and foreigners, but can he build a wall around job automation? Will jobs be the measure of human worth in this century and beyond when machines will do more, faster, and better?

Trump squeaked into office by wooing white blue collar voters in the former industrial states and in coal country with the idea that he would kick start their manual labor-intensive economies. Factory jobs.

Even […]

Universal Basic Income: Finland to Pay Some Residents $587 a Month

Universal Basic Income: Finland to Pay Some Residents $587 a Month

Finland is trying out a universal basic income experiment. Universal Basic Income: Finland to Pay Some Residents $587 a Month The universal basic income experiment will give 2,000 citizens in Finland $581.48 per month to live on. The members of the experiment range in age from 25 to 58. As part of the experiment, they no longer receive other social benefits from the country.

Finland’s universal basic income experiment will last for two years. The 2,000 people that are taking part in the experiment are unemployed. However, they will continue to receive the monthly payment even if they get a […]

Finland experiments with unconditional income for jobless

Some 2,000 unemployed Finnish citizens will begin to receive a monthly stipend that is not tied to their employment status, marking one of the world’s first forays into universal basic income, which could have groundbreaking implications for how nations combat income inequality.

The randomly selected Finns will receive €560, or around $587, each month for the next two years – even if they find regular, steady jobs or rake in extra cash by participating in the gig economy. If the program proves successful, Finland may expand it to include all adults, believing the shift could mean long-term savings for the […]

Gwynne Dyer: Universal basic income could be next labour revolution

FILE – In this Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump and Andy Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants, shake hands as Puzder leaves Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J. Trump has tapped Puzder as his pick to head the Labor Department. TrumpÄôs election as president has made many small business owners more upbeat about 2017. Many owners are more confident because their revenue looks to increase in 2017 due to the overall improving economy. TheyÄôre also optimistic because they expect Trump to deliver on promises to lower taxes and roll back regulations including […]

Universal basic income scheme set to trial

Universal basic income scheme set to trial

14:15 Tuesday 03 January 2017 Scotland is set to pilot a radical scheme to give every citizen a universal basic income (UBI), regardless of whether they work or not.

Two Labour-run councils, Fife and Glasgow, are designing trial schemes following meetings held late last year.

What level the basic income would be set at is yet to be announced, but the councils are to go ahead with the pilots, subject to sufficient funding being secured.Under UBI, welfare benefits such as working tax credits, Jobseekers’ Allowance and state pensions are replaced by a single, unconditional flat-rate payment, regardless of whether […]