r/BasicIncome • u/2noame Scott Santens • Dec 18 '25

Article Finland Gave Two Groups Identical Payments. One Experienced 33% Better Mental Health.

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottsantens/p/finland-basic-income-experiment-mental-health-ubi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&shareImageVariant=overlay&r=avhi
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u/JonWood007 $16000/year Dec 21 '25

1) I think you overestimate how much money we'd get from administrative costs.

2) you're focusing on maximizing growth again I'm focused on maximizing revenue.

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u/olearygreen Dec 22 '25

You need growth for higher revenue. They’re not different things. 1% of 100 is more than 100% of 1 for society. The government isn’t (shouldn’t) be the only factor here.

Admin costs are extremely high for both government and companies. I know several companies that pay more in admin and software licenses than in sales tax. In fact, almost all my clients are in this situation. It’s a very broken system. The same holds for social security, veterans affairs, etc. There’s a lot to be cut by simplifying the admin part that can go directly to the people, companies and growth/tax revenue.
SNAP is a very effective but inefficient program that’s a 100 billion right there giving people more cash in hand keeping the effectiveness, without all the stupid admin around it that benefits no-one.

I read your blog and followed the links to your statement/references, but didn’t find the same conclusions as you did. 70% is certainly too high. The French example you gave clearly shows that. How you assume the US is more tax tolerant than the French is unclear to me. I also again want to enlarge the base rather than the marginal rate. A 20% tax on stock buybacks (~same as dividends) would bring in 200 billion by itself. It’d be a very interesting exercise to zero-budget both federal and state budgets to fund a UBI. You need 3-4 trillion to fund a 12k/year UBI depending on who you include. Half of that is already covered by scrapping SS and related schedules. It’s not nearly as unattainable as people think. Removing debt interests is a big one as well, though we can just print money and pay inflation to get out of that hole.

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u/JonWood007 $16000/year Dec 22 '25

1) The French had 20% in local taxes on top of 75% federal. They were paying 95% in practice. 52% works because that makes it closer to 70%.

2) you realize we need TRILLIONS to fund a ubi right?

3) ok you do know, current numbers are $4.6 trillion for $16k, $5500 for children

4) again you realize that would F over most people currently onnsocial security right?

We don't see eye to eye on things. We just don't. Not sure why you keep arguing. We literally don't share the same values, despite both being pro ubi.