Free money? | Enno Schmidt and Marjukka Turunen

In this episode, Mel and Steff chat with Enno Schmidt and Marjukka Turunen, two experts on the practice of Universal Basic Income (UBI). What would the world look like if the government took over your allowance from your parent after you turned 18? (30m 49s)

Enno’s Bio

Born in 1958, studied painting in Frankfurt am Main. He is a co-founder and managing partner of the Business Economy and Art Extended and was a lecturer at the Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Karlsruhe. In 2006 he founded the Basic Income Initiative with Daniel Häni in Basel. His film “Basic income a cultural impulse” was distributed in many language versions worldwide. Enno Schmidt lives in Basel.

Marjukka’s Bio

Marjukka Turunen has been working in The Social Insurance Institution (Kela) in Finland for 17 years. She has been working with all the 40 basic social security benefits that Institution implements in Finland. Turunen has also been leading for the digitalisation of the operational ICT-systems and online services. She has also been leading the legislation making and the implementation of the Finnish Basic Income Experiment. Turunen is working as a Director of Change Management in Kela.

Tracing Enno and Marjukka’s Story:

Further media about Enno Schmidt’s ‘money mountain’ demonstration:

Video explanation of the Finnish Basic Income Experiment:

Relevant Facts about UBI and the Finish Basic Income Experiment:

The basic income experiment launched in Finland in January 2017 and has been paying a randomly selected group of participants a monthly basic income of 560 euros over the last two years
The initial budget for the experiment was €20 million
The experiment was conducted with 2,000 participants between the ages of 25 and 58 years old who were chosen from a pool of 175,000 people who received basic unemployment allowance or labor market subsidy payments
The basic income experiment concluded on December 31, 2018, with the last payments made on December 4, 2018
Preliminary results of the experiment have been released as of February 2019, which indicate that the experiment had a positive impact on the participants happiness and well-being, but had little effect on employment