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Comment by mistercow | Hacker News Reader

According to at least one researcher involved with the project, this is basically what was expected all along. It was planned to be a one year trial, and now the year is up and they'll analyze the results before deciding what to do next.

Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-incom...

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I believe it was supposed to run for two years. They ended it a year early. (First source that pops up: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/finland-experiments-universa...)

You're right that it was originally a two year plan, but they aren't terminating it a year early. It will still run for the full two years. As your link mentions, it launched at the beginning of 2017, and the Wired article mentions, it will run until the end of 2018.

What's happened recently is that they declined to extend it past two years.

No, they explicitly made this a conditional handout this year, which is very much a termination of the original plan. UBI researchers have generally considered this a failure already (not to mention that many economists think UBI cannot work, anyway).

"Finland has actually reversed course on that front this year, adopting rules that threaten to cut benefits for jobless people unless they actively look for work or engage in job training."

The best I can tell, the part of the article you've quoted is a reference to Finland's welfare policy in general, not this experiment. Note that it follows "a reflection of public discomfort with the idea of dispensing government largess free of requirements that its recipients seek work". Just bad writing, I think. But I can't find any other sources that back up the idea that they're changing this project mid flight, which would be a really bizarre thing to do, since it would completely invalidate any possible results.

Don't let the reality ruin a good headline...

Somebody has to pay and the people who would pay the most would be the working class citizens who add value to the economy.

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