{"id":85078,"date":"2017-01-09T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=85078"},"modified":"2017-01-04T20:05:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T20:05:17","slug":"finland-becomes-first-country-to-provide-citizens-basic-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/finland-becomes-first-country-to-provide-citizens-basic-income\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland Becomes First Country to Provide Citizens Basic Income"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government kicked off the two-year trial program, offering basic income of nearly US$600 to a randomly selected 2,000 citizens.<\/em><\/p>\n

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People wave Finish flags during a march. | Photo: Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

Finland kicked off its basic income program Monday [2 Jan 2017], giving US$587 per month to 2,000 of its citizens, an amount that \u2014\u00a0if extended to the entire adult population \u2014\u00a0will be guaranteed regardless of income, wealth or employment status.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Free Money: Canadian Province Experiments with ‘Basic Income’<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The trial program will run for a period of two years. Participants were randomly selected, but had to be receiving unemployment benefits or an income subsidy to be eligible.<\/p>\n

The government said it had chosen the figure for an unconditional basic income in line with a manifesto pledge by centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila, who took office late 2015. If the idea proves to be successful it will be expanded to all adults in Finland.<\/p>\n

The idea of a universal basic income has been gaining traction around the world, as introducing such a system has been discussed in Canada, \u00a0Iceland, Uganda and Brazil.<\/p>\n

Advocates of the program point to the success of a basic income program currently in the Italian city of Livorno, where its 200 poorest families are currently receiving some US$500 per month.<\/p>\n

The government hopes that the program will reduce unemployment, as people will be more inclined to take on odd or low-paying jobs with less worry about losing benefits.<\/p>\n

“Incidental earnings do not reduce the basic income,” said Marjukka Turunen, the head of the legal unit at Kela, Finland’s social insurance agency.\u00a0“So working and … self-employment are worthwhile no matter what.”<\/p>\n

In June, voters in Switzerland decisively rejected a far more generous proposal to pay a monthly US$2,500 to each adult.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 telesurtv.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finland kicked off its basic income program Monday [2 Jan], giving US$587 per month to 2,000 of its citizens, an amount that – if extended to the entire adult population – will be guaranteed regardless of income, wealth or employment status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scandinavia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}