From January 2017 to December 2018, Finland put the concept of a Universal Basic Income (IBI) to the test. This is the idea that rather than providing people with means-dependent unemployment benefits, every citizen would be given a flat monthly fee. It’s not a new idea; in fact the earliest recorded mention of UBI dates back to 1516, in Thomas More’s novel Utopia. The Finnish trial differed in that the 2,000 participants were already unemployed. Each was given a small fee of €560 per month, regardless of whether they could prove that they were seeking a job. Even if the recipients did get a job, they were allowed to continue receiving this payment.
The Finnish experiment wasn’t so much a trial to see if UBI itself could work, but an experiment to see if it would change peoples’ behaviour. Would this “safety net” of UBI help them find jobs, or even allow them to be more open to taking on insecure, short term jobs or zero hours contracts? Or would the unemployed become more complacent and less motivated to make a salary on top of their UBI?
The results after two years showed that employment levels did not improve as hoped. However, those who took part almost all claimed to be less stressed and happier in general, even though the payment was just enough to contribute to very basic living costs. Finland is not the only place to trial UBI, so we will see in the future if contrasting results emerge. UBI trials have been carried out to varying degrees in the Netherlands, Canada, Italy and Namibia, while a 2016 national referendum in Switzerland ruled out the possibility of it becoming a reality there.
