In the finnish politics there has been some debate about the ways of maintaining the welfare model in the changing world..

This has been one proposal and definetly one of the most interesting ones.

The reasoning behind the model is found from the existing labour market situations.. Because the automatization and the China syndrome, there has been not only reduced need for the unskilled workforce, but also an increase in the skilled workforce's productivity. This has caused weakening work compensation for the lowest paying jobs, unemployement and increasing economic inequality..

At least for socialistic movement in Finland, the traditional way for fighting for job compensation has been depending in the strong union work. The price for the labour work has been negotiated between the worker's unions, employer unions and the state.

Anyway, this existing model has it's problem in today's world, where the labour markets are shared with parts of the 3rd World, and where the raised economic injustice is not caused only by the worker's weak negotiation situation, but also by the increasing differences in the productivity.

For people, who value social well-being, while having hopes of full-employement, there is the proposal of 'negative taxation'. The idea would be that state would pay for the people having the most lowest paying jobs. The payment could be done progressivly. For example the goverment could pay like 33 cents for every dollar under 1200$/month in the cross salary for 40h/week job.

This could also make possible the removal of the minimal wage, which is partly responsible for keeping the unemployement statistics up. One reason for the minimum wage has been to guarantee that people are able to get a job paying enought to maintain a worthwile living. The negative taxation could make otherwise underpaid work to meet this condition.

I suppose the price of this kind of support would depend of the amount of people working under the stated payment line. If we would suppose, that 5% of the employed would require about 250$/month as an extra support, it would mean at average 10-15$/month extra payment for the others. It is also good to realize that it would reduce the unemployement costs for the state.

To summarize the idea of this kind of support is to say that it is better to pay people to work, than to be unemployed.

- BtD

__________________
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
[George Orwell, 1984]