Giving Compass' Take:

• Finland's basic income pilot provided stipends to unemployed individuals, not the working poor, differentiating it from true universal basic income. The trail was not extended after its planned conclusion, leading to false conclusions that it was a failed universal basic income experiment. 

• How can philanthropy support basic income trials with a variety of policy structures to determine the most effective? What current trials are showing the most promise? 

• Learn about the universal basic income trials going on around the world. 

In 2015, the government of Finland announced a new program that on its surface had progressives pretty excited. Beginning in 2017, 2,000 Finns would receive a flat monthly of €560 (about $685). It seemed like a concrete step toward implementing a universal basic income–a no-strings-attached, economic-security-boosting financial floor for people that’s been praised by everyone from Bernie Sanders to Mark Zuckerberg.

So when Finland recently made it clear that they will not continue to administer the program after the end of 2018, several outlets–most prominently The New York Times–read it as a death knell for universal basic income, and “a reflection of public discomfort with the idea of dispensing government largess free of requirements that its recipients seek work.”

The whole premise of a true universal income program is that people can be eligible to receive the supplemental payment regardless of whether or not they work. While the income threshold for receiving the benefit necessarily varies by context, generally the idea is to help people clear the poverty threshold wherever they live.

In Finland, the government only made the basic income stipend available to people who were already unemployed.

Limiting the basic income program to unemployed people serves a very different function than including all people below a certain income threshold. Unemployed people in Finland are already eligible for a benefits package roughly equal in value to the basic income payment. The difference in this two-year program is that people would still receive the basic-income stipend even if they secured a job, while traditional unemployment benefits disappear once someone starts working.

Read the full article about Finland's basic income pilot by Eillie Anzilotti at FastCompany.