Basic income recipients experience less financial risk

Survey respondents who received a basic income described their financial situation more positively than respondents in the control group.

They also experienced less stress and fewer financial worries than the control group, said the national social insurance institution-Kela in a press release.

Even recipients who had difficulty making ends meet experienced less stress than respondents in the control group.

According to Signe Jauhiainen of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), the findings are interesting in that previous research has shown financial difficulties to be a bigger contributor to stress than other problems of everyday life. Still, the observations are preliminary and require further analysis.

Basic income recipients reported greater trust in societal institutions

Respondents who received a basic income had more trust in other people and in societal institutions – politicians, political parties, police and the courts – than members of the control group.

The respondents reported their trust on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 = do not trust at all, 10 = trust completely). The average score for trust in other people was 6.8 among basic income recipients and 6.3 in the control group. As for trust in politicians and political parties, the average score among basic income recipients was 4.5 compared to 4.0 among members of the control group. The average scores for trust in courts and the police were 7.2 and 6.9 respectively among basic income recipients and the control group members.

Recipients of a basic income also expressed greater confidence in their ability to have influence over their own lives, in their personal finances and in their prospects of finding employment (3.2) than members of the control group (2.9, scale of 1 to 5, 1 = bad confidence; 5 = good condfidence). These differences persisted even when various background factors, such as age, gender, educational attainment, health and place of residence, were controlled for.

According to Minna Ylikännö of Kela, trust in other people and in institutions is essential both to individual well-being and to the functioning of society at large.

The survey was carried out by means of phone interviews immediately before the experiment was concluded. The response rate was 23% (31% for the recipients of a basic income and 20% for the control group). The survey data makes it possible to investigate individual experiences of economic well-being, financial control, stress and trust.

Ylikännö said that the response rate was rather low as is often the case with surveys. By combining the survey data with data available in various registries, it may be possible to see more clearly how representative the survey was, Ylikännö said.

Receiving a basic income did not decrease the recipients’ willingness to participate in employment services.

Persons who received a basic income during the experiment had no obligation to participate in services offered by the employment authorities. Nevertheless, they participated in such services nearly as much as others.

Register data for the first year of the experiment suggests that the basic income experiment did not have any effect on employment. The recipients were no more – or less – likely to be gainfully employed than members of the control group.

The evaluation study of the basic income experiment generates data that can be used when reshaping the social security system. Results will become available during 2019 and 2020.

In the experiment, 2,000 randomly selected unemployed persons were paid a monthly tax-exempt basic income of 560 euros regardless of any other income they may have had or whether they were actively looking for work. The experiment was begun on 1 January 2017 and ended on 31 December 2018.