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Posts Tagged ‘unemployed’

Finland’s Basic-Income Trial

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 19, 2017| 8 Comments »

Photo: Pekka Sipola/EPA
Finland is experimenting with a guaranteed income.

Recently I posted about a guaranteed-income pilot program in Kenya that MIT’s rigorously data-driven Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) will be evaluating over the next few years.

Now I see that Finland is testing the concept, too.

Aditya Chakrabortty wrote about Finland’s experiment last month at the Guardian. “In a speck of a village deep in the Finnish countryside, a man gets money for free. Each month, almost €560 [about $660] is dropped into his bank account, with no strings attached. The cash is his to use as he wants. Who is his benefactor? The Helsinki government.”

Juha Järvinen “is a human lab rat in an experiment that could help to shape the future of the west. Last Christmas, Järvinen was selected by the state as one of 2,000 unemployed people for a trial of universal basic income [UBI]. …

“Finland is the first European country to launch a major dry run. It is not the purists’ UBI – which would give everyone, even billionaires, a monthly sum. Nor will Finland publish any results until the two-year pilot is over at the end of 2018. …

“Ask Järvinen what difference money for nothing has made to his life, and you are marched over to his workshop. Inside is film-making equipment, a blackboard on which is scrawled plans for an artists’ version of Airbnb, and an entire little room where he makes shaman drums that sell for up to €900. All this while helping to bring up six children. All those free euros have driven him to work harder than ever.”

Even more than the money, the freedom from the country’s welfare bureaucracy is key.

“In Finland, €560 is less than a fifth of average private-sector income. … [Järvinen’s] liberation came in the lack of conditions attached to the money. If they so wish, Finns on UBI can bank the cash and do nothing else. But, in Järvinen’s case at least, the sum has removed the fear of utter destitution, freeing him to do work he finds meaningful. …

“Social affairs minister Pirkko Mattila … seems genuinely bemused that there could be any political resistance to handing poor people some money to sit at home. ‘I personally believe that in Finland citizens really want to work,’ she says.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Sometimes the Suit Makes the Man

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2014| 2 Comments »

I’ve heard of nonprofits like Dress for Success that provide women with business clothes for their job search. At work, we’ve had donation drives for Dress for Success.

Recently, I read that there are similar organizations for men. NY Times reporter Rachel Swarns interviewed several men who have benefited from such organizations.

Joseph Campbell, writes Swarns, “didn’t have a suit hanging in the homeless shelter where he lives. So he arrived at a job placement agency last week in a black T-shirt, green canvas shorts and Nike boots. He had a job interview scheduled for 3:30 p.m. — his first in months — and he was itching to get going.

“But the case managers at the agency told him he had one last appointment before he headed out, for something unexpected: a fitting, and a second chance. …

“When the job counselors directed him to the Suited for Work office last week, he felt as if he had stumbled into a new world. Brand-new suit jackets from designers like Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and Michael Kors hung from the racks. A kaleidoscope of ties beckoned. Dress shirts sat neatly stacked on the shelves, their pearly buttons calling for nimble fingers.

“Mr. Campbell had landed at one of the few nonprofits that provide jobless men with free suits and business attire. …

“With his job interview less than two hours away, the Suited for Work helpers scrambled to hem his trousers with safety pins and to replace his Nikes with a pair of wingtips.

“And then he was out the door, on the subway and arriving at his job interview right on time. The company manager, who interviewed him, offered him a part-time position on the spot, for $8 an hour.

“The two men shook hands on it and Mr. Campbell said goodbye.

“ ‘Nice suit,’ the manager said.”

More here.

Photo: Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times
Joseph Campbell, 32, deciding on a tie as he prepared for a job interview.

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Staying in the Fray

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 8, 2011|

Got to love this unemployment story on a 17-month job search by an older worker.
“Count 97-year-old Mary Poncin of Warwick (RI) among the long-term unemployed who have finally found work. Poncin has been hired as a greeter at Kent Hospital after nearly 17 months of being unemployed. She was laid off in January 2010 from a retail sales job. Her first job was as a waitress at a diner in the 1930s, earning $1 a day.” AP

If I were aged and sick and were fortunate enough to be greeted by her at the hospital, I think it would give me hope. Good for Kent Hospital to see a good thing!

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