Basic Income

Finland plans to scrap welfare and give everyone the equivalent of $871 a month...from birth until death!

In an effort to end poverty and make society more equal, Finland is planning to gift each of its 5.4 million citizens a monthly payment of 800 euros (approximately $871). The government hopes that by implementing this progressive and ambitious initiative, it can stop the need for welfare altogether.

The payments will be life-long, and they will be paid to every single person in Finland (including babies), regardless of their financial situation. While skeptics claim this ‘basic income’ will deter many from working, that logic could easily be applied to the welfare state. At least this way, nobody can complain that some get more than others, or have reason to attack the most vulnerable for needing some help: wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society with no poor-shaming?

Would that work in other countries?

Many will argue that this simply wouldn’t work in other countries due to national debt and the ongoing global financial crisis. But Finland is hardly doing well: while unemployment stands relatively low at 10%, the country has been in a recession for three years, and like other European countries, public spending has been heavily affected by austerity cuts. Despite all this, the government is willing to take a big risk to eradicate poverty. Most Finnish people (around 60%) support the plans, which are expected to be implemented in 2017.

What are the obstacles to making it happen in Canada?

A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly cheques were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Man. – no strings attached.

And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated.

The program was dubbed “Mincome” – a neologism of “minimum income”

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving cheques to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t.

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 – and federally in 1979 – had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage.

A final report was never released.