Finland as projection space: this time guarnteed basic income

emoji-meanwhileinfinland
The official emoji for: „meanwhile in Finland“

When you live in Finland but are from Germany, you sometimes find articles about stuff that is supposedly going on in Finland. Most of these things are more or less surprising or even astonishing. We were used to Finland as the land of „magic education“, technological mobile phone wonders and so on. Now Finland has even caught up as the country of amazing social advances and German media report it is about to introduce a guaranteed basic income.

See for example one of Germany leading dailies, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

„Finnland 800 Euro Grundeinkommen – für jeden

Die finnische Regierung bereitet offenbar ein monatliches Grundeinkommen für jeden Erwachsenen vor. Sie hat damit vor allem eines im Sinn. 07.12.2015″ (more)

If you read the article you might think this is going to happen tomorrow. But if you dig deeper, then you find this explanation on the website of the Finish state social affairs office „Kela“:

„Experimental study on a universal basic income

A working group of researchers from a range of organisations under the project leadership of Kela is exploring ways in which to carry out an experimental study focusing on the implementation of a universal basic income scheme“ (more)

 

So the entire thing is an experiment. Right now they are doing research about different methods and modes that this might take (more or less studying books and previous studies..) Then in 2017 there might be an actual experiment in one municipality!

So people stay calm. The Finish Goverment might try this at some point in the future…

Meanwhile Bildblog has also started talking about this.