The Basic Income Issue I heard about plans to test the basic income model in Finland. While I am not fully aware of the details concerning the model to be tested or the test plan, the text below only includes a generic consideration about the matter. By a constant unconditional basic income I refer here to the situation where a state would pay continuous income to all citizens. A range of social benefits would be covered by the basic income. In my writing, the conditional aspect covers all issues that affect the amount or availability of basic income e.g. employment, social status, age, wealth, health and other earnings. Some notes concerning the situation in Finland: - The economic activity still remains somewhat slow (esp. exports), the amount of vacancies remains scarce, and the need for resources identified by public sector does not nearly match the competencies available. Bureaucracy and operations of public services create a lot of unnecessary costs and activities. The endeavor to create subsidized jobs esp. in areas of economy that do not have potential for the creation of value added even in the long term can lead the economy to a vicious circle where competencies remain unused and are forgotten, yet the imbalance between public cost and GDP increases. - At the moment, the unemployment amongst educated people still remains high, plus the unemployment rate may not give a profound representation of the actual situation; the state of affairs may look a bit different when one considers the branches and ways in which the employment has increased or the group that is officially neither employed (or an entrepreneur), unemployed, student, nor pensioner. - The existing legal system separates students and entrepreneurs from those who are identified as job seekers. The status of job seeker can easily be lost, if one tries to earn by other means than in a traditional employment relationship. - Generally, entrepreneurs fall outside of many social benefits, which affects the attractiveness of entrepreneurship and so slows down the economy. - The existing legislation also effectively hinders the opportunities to start business and by blocking possibilities to seek assets from private sources creates pressure towards public funding that is mostly accompanied by obligatory services. Many of these services that often prove crowded may often be either unnecessary or could be supplied by private sector. In my opinion, one of the most important issues would be to increase the attractiveness of entrepreneurship. A constant unconditional basic income would appear almost only way to remove the in many ways unnecessary and even detrimental distinction and inequality between entrepreneur and employer. I do not think that the difference is compensated too well in taxation at the moment, or at least many benefits only appear when the company assets reach certain size. Would an unconditional basic income then be an expensive solution? I think the issue is very much dependent on the implementation; Having an unconditional constant basic income paid for everybody would most likely minimize the need for bureaucracy and create savings. Keeping the amount of basic income low enough would most likely keep the motivation to earn high. It could possibly also foster the emergence of new earning logics and business models. An unconditional basic income model would also most likely increase the attractiveness of shorter period or part time employment contracts. Making the basic income conditional in any way will most likely reduce the efficiency and would in most cases exclude entrepreneurs from the benefit. Would an unconditional basic income then be expensive? Perhaps, if one calculates a benefit for everybody that​ should be covered by taxes, but is that the way to calculate the matter? Taking into account the current situation, I think it is possible that a basic income would lead to stronger economy and create savings in public costs. ​ Johanna Sandman Published: 19.9.2016 21:00