It’s shocking. Just shocking, I tell you. In fact, this may be the most groundbreaking discovery in basic economics to happen since man first invented the barter system. Here it is. Get ready...
It turns out giving people free stuff doesn’t encourage them to go out and earn it themselves.
I know, right? Amazing!
It’s this stunning lesson in basic human behavior that Finland’s learning firsthand following a trial implementation of the country’s “free money” program, which sought to give unemployed residents a leg-up on earning their own money by giving them a base income of 560 euros (about $635) a month.
But it turns out that handing jobless people free money doesn’t actually encourage them to go out and find gainful employment. The Daily Mail reports:
A groundbreaking trial in Finland has found that unemployed workers are 'no better or worse' at finding a job if they receive a guaranteed basic income.
While the experiment found that free money recipients had “less stress symptoms as well as less difficulties to concentrate and less health problems” than those who didn’t get free money, they were no more or less likely to go out and get themselves a job than people who weren’t getting a government check each month.
“The recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market,” Ohto Kanninen, research coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research, said in a statement, according to the Daily Mail.
The conclusion that people who get free stuff are just as unlikely to try and earn things for themselves is nearly as shocking as Panera’s recently-failed “Pay-What-You-Can” model that found offering people free food probably won’t inspire them to pay for it.
Despite these recent -- and again, absolutely astounding -- new findings, Democratic lawmakers continue to push new social reforms that call for guaranteeing housing, food, a living wage, paid vacation, parental leave and lollipops for life to every American, including those "unable or unwilling to work."
But hey, don't blame socialism if you try this and have problems. After all, Venezuela's probably just not doing it right.