from Hacker News

Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

by tchalla on 5/7/20, 2:21 PM with 244 comments

  • by nicbou on 5/7/20, 4:32 PM

    Last year, I had something that was very close to basic income (income-generating website that doesn't require active babysitting).

    I knew a life without work would be amazing, but I never expected it to be this great.

    I had much more time and energy to enjoy life. There was never a rush to do anything. I woke up when I wasn't tired. I could read in bed for an hour if it felt right. Sometimes I'd just walk 3-5 kilometres to an appointment, and stop for a pint along the way.

    I didn't stagnate either. My personal projects became my job. My work day started when I was ready and ended when I was done. With my finances already sorted out, I worked on things I enjoyed, not on potential startups.

    Interestingly enough, life got cheaper. I didn't eat out as often, and cooked from scratch. I could afford the time it takes to be frugal.

    Never in my life have I been so content with my situation. I didn't make much, but I had all the time in the world to enjoy life. Isn't that what people say they'd do if they won the lottery?

    The second part of the experience came when I got a short work contract to finance a motorcycle trip. Suddenly, I was back to losing sleep, skipping breakfasts, waiting for the day to end, commuting and generally trying to fit life around my job.

    I give basic income a 10/10, and wish everyone was given the chance to enjoy life on their own terms. I don't know if it's economically viable, but it's definitely the most enjoyable lifestyle I got to experience.

    EDIT: this is getting a bit of attention. I'd be happy to answer questions publicly or privately. There's a fair bit of luck involved, but no dirty secrets.

  • by BitwiseFool on 5/7/20, 3:05 PM

    The problem I have with studies like this one is that they only measure the effects of getting a stipend during a limited amount of time with a limited amount of people. It's not universal and it's not basic.

    From a non-scientific view point, of course giving people free money makes them feel better.

    But from an experimental perspective, they aren't getting the 'full package' of UBI. The participants aren't seeing increased taxes and they aren't seeing inflation from this. Chances are, their landlord doesn't know about this extra money and hasn't raised their rent.

  • by DonaldFisk on 5/7/20, 3:24 PM

    Analysis of data from the Canadian Mincome experiment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome) by Evelyn Forget showed more concrete benefits. People's health improved: "Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidents of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from accidents and injuries. Forget also compared proportions of women with children and suggested lower lifetime fertility as a possible outcome by comparing birth rates of young mothers with those of a control group. Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals."

  • by notkaiho on 5/7/20, 3:00 PM

    > "Aimed primarily at seeing whether a guaranteed income might encourage people to take up often low-paid or temporary work without fear of losing benefits"

    Turns out people do not, in fact, generally want to take precarious or otherwise unattractive jobs unless forced to economically. Who'd a thunk?

  • by black_puppydog on 5/7/20, 5:22 PM

    Interesting exercise in spin here. The German state media tagesschau.de [1] phrases it like this:

    > Finns take stock soberly

    > More security, fewer depressions: the Finnish UBI experiment benefited the participants. Alas, the results show: the desired effect for the work market cannot be shown.

    For me, the German title reads very much like "this doesn't work" while the article mentions that the results regarding the market cannot be distinguished from other interfering changes to the social welfare system that were made in the meantime.

    Which funnily reminds me of the top comment in the current ad-tech thread [2]: "The hard part is convincing the [people in charge] to stop messing with stuff long enough that you can actually measure the results."

    [1]: https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/grundeinkommen-finnland-10... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23103492

  • by pasiaj on 5/7/20, 3:40 PM

    I'm looking at the report's table of contents. It's in Finnish. The report includes overviews of multiple studies and provides plenty of valuable insight on multiple themes.

    Here's my rough translation:

      1. Introduction
  2. Other basic income studies in other countries
  3. Effects on employment
  4. Perceived health, psychological wellbeing and cognitive performance 
  5. Economic well-being
  6. Experiences on bureaucracy
  7. Basic income and trust
  8. Participant interviews on basic income's effects on employment, participation, autonomy 
  9. BI in media
  10. General populations views on BI and uncertainty relating to income
    I'm sure an English language version will be published at some point but I could not find one yet.

  • by zhoujianfu on 5/7/20, 5:19 PM

    I don’t get the goal of trying to get more people to “work”. I would think increasing wellbeing should be the goal. It’s the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of hours worked.

    I’m sure the hunter-gatherers were upset the farmers weren’t motivated to hunt and gather too.

  • by 7532yahoogmail on 5/7/20, 8:22 PM

    The American system is or aims for equality of opportunity. Europe manages for equality of outcomes. These are vastly different. To make UBI work in the US is a much bigger uphill battle as a result. Now, it can be rightly argued that these remain goals to some extent. Civil rights weren't passed until the 60s in the US. So we can inveigh there where gaps remain. Finally, UBI cannot be seriously engaged and implemented without tackling tax breaks, and other social programs like Medicare/Medicade. Otherwise it's just more money. More money isn't always the answer

  • by forgot_again on 5/7/20, 4:39 PM

    Of course basic income on a small enough scale to avoid inflation improves recipients' wellbeing. That's not really in dispute.

    The challenge is whether or not it is possible to actually implement on a society wide scale without net negative or self nullifying side effects.

    One self nullifying side effect: give everyone free money -> prices go up -> everyone is back to where they started.

  • by mikorym on 5/7/20, 6:06 PM

    Has the economics behind a universal basic income been (attempted to be) modelled?

    I don't expect a perfectly representative model, but I think a lot along the lines of what made Warren Buffet famous: What is the worth of something vs. the price of that thing? And how does one bring labour into the equation?

  • by akvadrako on 5/7/20, 4:37 PM

    This was not really a UBI experiment. Those who got the unconditional payout got it on top of conditional welfare. I don't know why people keep pretending it tells us something about UBI.

  • by jokoon on 5/7/20, 7:03 PM

    I wish there was some study that would actually prove that free money is bad, and that it's required to pay people have a productive society.

    Because so far, this sort of belief belongs to religious texts, and it's still an important pillar of how society works. We still judge the homeless and moochers because they are not willing to work. We even put people at job where they're not productive, as long as they look busy, available, and obeying.

  • by anm89 on 5/8/20, 1:57 AM

    Of course redistributing wealth to a person in bulk in the short term is going to improve their wellbeing. Was anybody really wondering if this is true? This is bordering on tautology.

    The criticism of these programs is that they will cause economic problems in the long run. It's not to say they won't make anybody happy in the short run.

  • by new2628 on 5/7/20, 4:39 PM

    I believe the study, I would also love to be on BI while the rest of society is not.

  • by mamon on 5/7/20, 3:40 PM

    UBI will be introduced, just not in the way most of us would like. It will be throught Quantitive Easing, as currently done by FED.

    What QE does is - it concentrates the wealth in hands of 0.1% of society. Each financial crisis (2008, 2020) only speeds up this process. Once top 0.1 owns more than, say 90% of wealth we will be back to ancient Rome - "panem et circenses", wealthy people throwing some scraps of wealth towards mases, just enough to keep them from revolting.

    Gig economy will also play some role: we are slowly cooking the frog, getting people used to the fact that they don't own their homes, or their cars, they do not have pemanent jobs. Everything they have is a short term rental. They are living using borrowed things, on borrowed time...

  • by known on 5/7/20, 3:18 PM

  • by known on 5/7/20, 3:17 PM

  • by nocitrek on 5/7/20, 2:58 PM

    Important thing to keep in mind regarding UBI is that goverment does not generate any money. In order for goverment to give money, it needs to take it from someone.

    So UBI is just proxy for wealth redistribution. Sure, wellbeing has improved for small group of people, but the question is how scalable UBI is? Remember, road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  • by lcall on 5/7/20, 5:07 PM

    I tried to explain in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922

    ...why a UBI at the US federal level takes away freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is morally wrong, is harmful, and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc.

    (With down-votes, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)