"Basic Income" Flops In Finland

Giving unemployed people a "basic income" hasn't worked in one of the most homogenous countries in the world, Finland.  And yet people want to try it here:

The Finnish government has decided not to expand a limited trial in paying people a basic income, which has drawn much international interest...

When Finland launched the experiment its unemployment rate was 9.2% - higher than among its Nordic neighbours.

That, and the complexity of the Finnish social benefits system, fuelled the calls for ambitious social security reforms, including the basic income pilot.

The pilot's full results will not be released until late 2019...

It also argued that basic income would increase income inequality and raise Finland's poverty rate from 11.4% to 14.1%.

Update:  I guess I should add the part about trying it here in the Democratic People's Republic of Kalifornia:

Republicans in Congress certainly talk a good game about helping the poor and middle class, arguing, however unconvincingly, that their rewrite of the tax code will amount to more than just a giveaway to the rich. But all their shameless maneuvering is really doing is making once-crazy, semi-socialistic economic ideas, such as universal basic income, seem sane.

Take the city of Stockton.

For weeks now, Michael Tubbs, the mayor of this rough-and-tumble Central Valley city, has been making headlines for jump-starting a government-run pilot project that will give dozens of families $500 every month, no strings attached and regardless of employment status...

Although universal basic income gets derided as socialism, Tubbs sees it as a tool, like the earned income tax credit, for helping poor people stay afloat and keeping middle-class people from sliding into poverty.

If it can't work in Finland, freakin' Finland, well, we can make it work in the DPRK.  Because...just because.