As two-year trial comes to an end, Finland is still far from a universal basic income

NEW YORK—The Finnish government has discarded the option to extend its world-famous two-year basic income trial, launched in January of 2017 and coming to an end next January.

The experiment has involved 2,000 unemployed Finns picked at random, aged between 25 and 58, who have been receiving about 690 USD every month. The pilot has often been linked with the concept of universal basic income (known as UBI), but the connection is not accurate since only a small number of unemployed people are benefiting from it.

In an ideal UBI scenario, every citizen would receive a regular, livable sum of money, independent of any other income. Advocates of the policy argue that this would reduce inequality within societies and improve living standards. Public figures such as Martin Luther King Jr, Richard Nixon and, most recently, US senator Bernie Sanders and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg have defended different versions of the UBI. Although it has never been fully implemented, recent experiments have been launched in Ontario, Canada, and in a Kenyan village.

Christian Martin, a professor of political science at the University of Kiel, Germany, and a visiting professor at New York University, said that the closest a government has gotten to a universal income experiment is not Finland, but rather the United States. Alaska’s Permanent Fund, established in 1982, distributes revenues from natural resources, such as oil, to all residents. In 2015, the dividend reached a peak of 2,072 USD per person.

Besides being just a two-year trial, the Finnish experiment’s other limitation is also its dependence on politics. While members of parliament from the Left Alliance and the Green League have been the most supportive of the program, the conservative National Coalition Party has been largely skeptical.

“As a policy of a government, it’s subject to political influence,” Martin said. “As soon as a new government is elected and declares that there should be no more UBI, people couldn’t rely on it.”

Amidst discussions between the political parties, the Finnish government has turned down a request to expand the program.

“A meaningful UBI would have to be constitutionalized, so that it could be taken out of the realm of politics,” said Martin.

The professor added that as the concept of UBI has gained traction among many politicians from different countries and parties. These politicians who have “come on board,” he said, sometimes apply the term “universal basic income” to policies that do not properly reflect the concept of UBI.

The welfare policy has attracted both market liberals and leftists, continued Martin. “There is a broad coalition that supports it. We don’t know what will happen [to the labor market] with automation, so this might be the way to go.”

Anna Pazos has contributed to this report. Photo: Helsinki / Wikimedia Commons.