Removing Welfare Traps: Employment Responses in the Finnish Basic Income Experiment

This research provides evidence that replacing minimum unemployment benefits with a guaranteed basic income of equal size has minor employment effects in an advanced country. The study examined 2,000 benefit recipients in Finland who were randomized to receive a monthly basic income between 2017 and 2018. The experiment sought to remove potential welfare traps that unemployed persons face by diminishing administrative barriers through a monthly basic income combined with a considerable improvement in the monetary incentives for employment. The authors of the study find that the 95% confidence interval of the first-year primary outcome estimate, measured in annual employment days, ranges from -2.3 to 5.4, concluding that the experiment had minor employment effects at best.