Everyone in this thread is writing as though this has never been tried before.
It has been tried at least five times (three in USA and twice in Canada). The results have been re-analysed in recent years and show that the reduction in peoples willingness to work is very slight.
Of course if Finland does it over the whole country then this will be a much larger experiment than the US and Canadian ones.
I think that there are good reasons to believe that it will have a very positive effect. It also gives greater bargaining power to the lowest paid so that it should help to prevent the reduction in wages that is becoming a feature of the low end of the employment market.
It also gives greater bargaining power to the lowest paid so that it should help to prevent the reduction in wages that is becoming a feature of the low end of the employment market.
If supply of labor is significantly reduced then prices for labor will rise. Didn't you just claim that won't happen?
You keep throwing out this 13% as if it is a bad thing, with no comment on the context mentioned in your link. So I'll add it here for others to view if they don't want to wade through a pdf to find it:
1: The 13% decrease in work effort is per family unit. This is an important distinction, because it led to the following 3 points
2: The primary wage earner in the unit reduced their effort only slightly, but this had a large result due to them making the majority of the cash
3: The secondary wage earner, who was usually the spouse reduced their work effort to stay at home longer after having a baby, and to do more work around the house.
4: The tertiary wage earner, in most cases an adolescent male, had theIr work effort reduced by the fact that it entered the workforce later. This may have been due to them continuing their education.
So I think - IMHO - the 13% reduction represent a net benefit for society - dad doesn't have to do so much overtime, mum can spend more time with her baby, and your kids stay in school longer and become qualified for better jobs...
And as a result we get less productive output, making us all poorer.
If you want to argue that making us poorer, but having more leisure is a good thing, go ahead. But don't claim the effect is "slight" unless you also consider the great recession to be "slight".
"And as a result we get less productive output, making us all poorer."
This is not necessarily the case. "Work effort" is not fungible. In the case of tertiary workers, a highschool drop-out working now is probably giving us less productive output over time than had they finished their education.
Are you really jumping to that conclusion from a single number? Not only that, are you saying that reduced work effort leads to reduced productive output?
If I follow your logic, and what the study showed, if I start working at 16, but you go to university, and get a masters degree so do not the start work until you're 25, I have put in more work effort, and you are now making us all poorer.
It has been tried at least five times (three in USA and twice in Canada). The results have been re-analysed in recent years and show that the reduction in peoples willingness to work is very slight.
Of course if Finland does it over the whole country then this will be a much larger experiment than the US and Canadian ones.
I think that there are good reasons to believe that it will have a very positive effect. It also gives greater bargaining power to the lowest paid so that it should help to prevent the reduction in wages that is becoming a feature of the low end of the employment market.