by James Herbert | Apr 27, 2019 | News
Further preliminary results from Finland’s much publicised basic income experiment have been announced: firstly, the study’s basic income recipients reported increased trust; secondly, increased agency; and thirdly (perhaps unsurprisingly), they reported an improved financial situation.
The experiment ran for two years, starting on January 1st 2017. It was administered by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela). Its main objective was to find ways to reshape the Finnish social security system in response to a changing labour market. A total of 2000 unemployed persons between 25 and 58 years of age received a monthly payment of € 560, unconditionally (to be spent as recipient saw fit) and without means testing.
BIEN has already reported on how the the experimenters observed a positive impact on reported wellbeing and a non-significant impact on employment. These latest announcements, released on April 4th, add to this. The full set of preliminary results can be found in this report.
Regarding increased trust, respondents who received a basic income had more trust in other people and in societal institutions — i.e., politicians, political parties, police and the courts — than members of the control group. On a scale from 0 to 10, the average score for trust in other people increased from 6.3 in the control group, to 6.8 amongst basic income recipients. As for trust in politicians and political parties, the average score increased from 4.0 to 4.5. For the combined category of courts and the police, the average score increased from 6.9 to 7.2.
According to Minna Ylikännö of Kela, trust in other people and in institutions is essential both to individual well-being and to the functioning of society at large.
Regarding increased agency, recipients reported greater confidence in their ability to influence their own lives when it came to personal finance and finding employment. On a scale of 0 to 5, recipients reported a score of 3.2, whereas the control group reported an average score of only 2.9.
Regarding personal finances, recipients reported an increase in their ability to live comfortably. Participants in the experiment were asked to categorise their financial situation as either ‘living comfortably’, ‘coping’, ‘finding it difficult’, or ‘finding it very difficult’. The proportion of people describing themselves as living comfortably increased from 7% in the control group to 12% amongst basic income recipients. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the proportion of people who described themselves as ‘finding it very difficult’ decreased from 17% in the control to 13% amongst basic income recipients.
All of the above-mentioned differences persisted even after background factors were controlled for. The data was gathered through phone interviews conducted immediately before the experiment was concluded. Further results are expected soon.
by Andre Coelho | Feb 16, 2019 | News
Picture credit to: Finland Toolbox
Finland’s famous “basic income experiment” is now over. The analysis program is being rolled out, and was scheduled according to the following timetable (from Kela (Finnish Social Services)).
At the end of 2018, a phone survey was made, involving all participants (2000 experiment subjects and 5000 people forming the control group), to check on “the impact of the basic income on employment, taxable earnings, take-up of unemployment benefits paid out by Kela, and enrolment in employment services”. This survey was done according to international standards on questionnaires (e.g.: European Social Survey, International Social Survey Programme, European Union Survey). Furthermore, interviews are planned to be performed in early 2019, in order to “interpret and shed further light on some of the unanswered questions and unexpected results”. To contextualize the registry data collection, phone survey and interviews, a thorough look will also be directed to public debate and popular support (or lack thereof) for basic income. This clearly means that the investigators did more than just try to answer the overarching question posed by the Finnish government at the start of the experiment: “could basic income increase employment and simplify the social security system?” (video)
Now that the experiment is over, and while the data treatment and deep analysis is being performed, BBC put together a short video piece entitled “Did Finland’s basic income experiment work?”, asking the corollary inquiry “How free money changed people’s lives?”. In a couple of interviews with experiment participants, the message coming through is that the experiment brought promises of a better, more secure life, with less governmental bureaucracy, but unfortunately it had to end (with no prospects of expansion, let alone implementation by the current government). One of those participants, Tania, told BBC that “basic income changed my life”, since it allowed her to “stand on [her own] two feet”. Another participant, Thomas, referred that the same difficulties remained, during the experiment, for getting into paid employment, which might be related to the fact that the experiment had a very small target group of people (2000), spread along the whole of Finland. That level of scattering doesn’t allow for community effects on the introduction of a kind of basic income allowance, and so the marketplace does not adjust accordingly. This seems to be aligned with one of the preliminary conclusions just published: that the experiment did not result in higher levels of paid employment for the participants.
However, the referred published report does include important (preliminary) results of other (less objective than hours in employment) analysed variables, such as Life Satisfaction, Trust, Confidence, Physical and Mental Health, Concentration, Depression, Financial Security, Stress and Attitudes Toward unconditional basic income (UBI). International basic income activist Scott Santens has summarized these results in a convenient way, which might be put into an even more succinct list (percentages refer to differences between averages of the experiment’s treatment group and the control group, over each variable):
Life Satisfaction – observed an 8% improvement;
Trust – observed an increase of 6% in other people, 5% in the legal system and 11% in politicians;
Confidence – observed an increase of 21% of confidence in one’s future, and a 22% increase in one’s ability to influence society;
Physical and Mental Health – observed a 17% improvement;
Concentration – observed a 16% improvement;
Depression – observed a 37% reduction (measured through qualitative answers);
Financial security – observed a 26% improvement;
Stress – observed a 17% improvement (over the number of people who responded they felt “little or no stress at all”);
Attitudes Toward UBI – observed a 38% improvement over the number of people who strongly agree that a nationwide UBI would make it easier to accept job offers, and a 24% increase over the number of people who think Finland should now adopt a UBI.
It should be made clear again, if two years of the pilot itself and another of preparation were not enough to explain the real important parameters of the experiment, that what happened in Finland was not exactly a basic income (implementation) experiment. It was, as Santens put it, “a test of slightly reducing the marginal tax rates experienced by the unemployed, and also slightly reducing the amount of bureaucracy they experience”. From this to a basic income as defined by BIEN goes a long way. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that such a limited experiment, both in scope as in depth, could generate such positive preliminary results on human (generalized) wellbeing.
More information at:
Toru Yamamori, “Finland: Wellbeing improved: First results of the BI experiment”, Basic Income News, February 11th 2019
Olli Kangas, Signe Jauhiainen, Miska Simanainen, Minna Ylikännö (eds.), “The Basic Income Experiment 2017–2018 in Finland. Preliminary results”, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, February 8th 2019
Scott Santens, “What is There to Learn From Finland’s Basic Income Experiment? Did It Succeed or Fail?”, Medium, February 14th 2019
by Toru Yamamori | Feb 11, 2019 | News
Preliminary results of the basic income experiment, which the Finnish government implemented in 2017-2018, was presented at Säätytalo, “House of the Estates” (Snellmaninkatu 9-11, Helsinki), on Friday, 8th February 2019, as we reported previously.
Olli Kangas, scientific leader of the study and Professor of Practice at the University of Turku, summed up the result concisely when he was asked by a journalist:
No significant effects on employment, but important effects on well-being.
At the event, Kangas gave an overview of the preliminary finding; Ohto Kanninen, research coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research, spoke on the effects on employment; and Minna Ylikännö, senior researher at Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, presented on the effects on well-being.
The event can be watched online here, and the summary can be read here.
The final results will be published in 2020.
For what the experiment can and cannot tell us, this piece and literature mentioned in the piece could be helpful. For literature on other experiments, this page might be a good starting point.
Photo: Sauna in Helsinki, CC BY-NC 2.0 Piltti.
Article reviewed by Russell Ingram.
by Toru Yamamori | Feb 7, 2019 | News
Preliminary results of the basic income experiment, which Finish government implemented in 2017-2018, will be presented at Säätytalo, “House of the Estates” (Snellmaninkatu 9-11, Helsinki), on Friday, 8th February 2019, between 8.30 and 10.30 (time in Helsinki, GMT +2).
The event will be also webstreamed here.
The speakers will be:
- Pirkko Mattila (Minister of Social Affairs and Health)
- Anu Vehviläinen (Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms)
- Olli Kangas (scientific leader of the study and Professor of Practice at the University of Turku)
- Ohto Kanninen (research coordinator at Labour Institute for Economic Research)
- Minna Ylikännö (Senior Researher at Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland)
More information can be found here.
Photo: Tram street in Helsinki, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, City Clock Magazine.
Article reviewed by Dawn Howard.
by Andre Coelho | Sep 5, 2018 | News
After reporting on the two first days of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress in Tampere, Finland, 24th and 25th of August, a second and final part is here lay forth, covering for the event on the last day (26th). (Note 1)
Jamie Cooke, Sarath Davala, Evelyn Forget, Loek Groot and Olli Kangas all sat together at the University of Tampere main auditorium to speak and discuss basic income experiments. These stood for, respectively, the Scottish feasibility study (not yet a functional pilot), the Indian Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot (concluded – ran through years 2011 and 2012), Canadian experiments (past “Mincome” experiment and the interrupted Ontario pilot), the Netherlands transfer schemes (several Municipalities) and the Finish ongoing two-year experiment. The session was chaired by Phillipe van Parijs.
Jamie Cooke
The speakers were asked to freely describe each case. Olli Kangas assured the audience that the Finish experiment is going on as planned, and that results will start to be collected and organized after the ending date, in December 2018. He also confirmed that the studied variables were essentially related to paid work and related job market interactions, adding that survey data would be published at the beginning of 2019 at the latest. As for Evelyn Forget, she reminded that basic income experiments in Canada have been more focused on health outcomes, although work-related results have also been captured. She believes the Ontario pilot – six months into its planned duration – was cancelled for ideologic reasons (the new conservative government arguing that people should get jobs, instead of depending on unconditional transfers). In his turn, Loek Groot informed the audience that experiments in the Netherlands are not testing basic income, but several ways of managing people on benefits. He also added that the social benefits system in the Netherlands is decentralizing, hence the Municipalities initiatives to start these experiments which, generally, measure work-related variables, plus health and life satisfaction data. Finally, Jamie Cooke explained that the basic income idea in Scotland has very much gained from BIEN’s affiliate in the region (Basic Income Scotland) and its actions to spread the word about it. That and the work of RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), both in the United Kingdom and the local Scottish RSA, has helped in gaining traction for the (basic income) experiment. Jamie noted that the language used when presenting and discussing basic income must be clear, because people need to understand what is being done or planned.
At this moment, van Parijs introduced a provocative question: What, if any, would be the results of a basic income experiment that would lead you to give up on the basic income idea? Olli Kangas recognized that there could be such a result, taking on a cautious approach. However, he added, experimental results could always be “spun” politically in several directions, according to ideologic agendas. Evelyn Forget didn’t oppose to that view, although, contrary to Kangas, she thinks the outcomes of such experiments are already more or less predictable (drawing from past experiments analysis). Sarath Davala wouldn’t quite imagine himself not being a supporter of basic income, and so returned a more passioned answer: “I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it!”. He added, however, that basic income experiments also test if trusting people is good or not (he believes that it is good). Near the end of the session, Evelyn concluded that people love stories, caring much less about numbers and statistics. That is why she worries about eventual social destructive behaviours which may occur during (basic income like) experiments.
Parallel sessions during this last day of the Congress were widely varied, although only lasted through the morning period. Papers on freedom and (social) reparation, trade unions, work, rights, alternative currencies and the relation of all these with basic income were presented.
Evelyn Forget
The last Plenary Session was featured by Evelyn Forget, who explained in further detailed what happened with the Ontario experiment. She informed that first the new government argued that the experiment had “failed”, which could not be true since there was no data to justify that statement. In a subsequent argument (for having cancelled the experiment), the same government alleged that 25% of the recipients had dropped out, which was also false, for the same reason (no data). The true reason for slashing the basic income pilot finally came, when an official from the newly elected government stated that they did not believe in “free money”, but in people getting jobs. Forget was further concerned about this situation, aggravated by the fact that recipients were getting more or less twice then they would have from regular benefits (and now had to return to their original earnings, with no previous warning). The need to ease these recipients out of the experiment has motivated an insurgence of activity by Canadian social activists (mainly basic income advocates and anti-poverty organizations), to try and restart the experiment or at least to help people transition from their income support during the experiment to their former earnings.
Forget concluded the Plenary with more general considerations on income, welfare and basic income. According to her, income security is not only linked to precarious employment, but also with welfare bureaucracy, which has gotten so complex that people have difficulty in knowing what their earnings will be from month to month. Hence basic income would introduce a kind of income regularity that most people nowadays cannot really expect from the market nor from the State. She ended on the note that the goodness of basic income very much depends on its financing mechanism, which could turn an output of social solidarity into one of societal disintegration.
Closing the Congress, Annie Miller shared a few last words, emphasizing that BIEN Congresses have greatly expanded since their inauguration in 1986. All the same subjects are covered nowadays, as were before (ex.: poverty, social justice), but now including issues such as (basic income) experiments, environmental issues and cryptocurrencies. For her, the importance of research, dissemination of knowledge and activism for basic income cannot be overstated. Finally, Miller is confident that, although present-day world is (mainly) governed by sociopaths, the time has arrived to replace them with empathy, kindness and honesty.
Note 1 – Mistakenly, Lena Lavina’s Plenary Session was held on the 26th (first in the morning), but reported on part 1 as having been on the 25th. So now, the last Plenary held on the 25th, on basic income experiments, is reported on in the present article (part 2).
More information at:
BIEN Congress 2018 website
André Coelho, “BIEN Congress 2018 (part 1)”, Basic Income News, September 3rd 2018
