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The Ministry of labour of Finland summed up the experiment on the study of the unconditional basic income — the first in the world in the scale and quality of a sample of respondents in the pilot project. Its results have been obvious — the overwhelming evidence, received no increase in life satisfaction, nor the success of employment among the respondents. This, however, is unlikely to prevent the idea to stay actively discussed — especially at the onset of the economic crisis after the pandemic coronavirus.Recipients of the basic income can feel more prosperous and happy — but it does not increase their economic activity. The following conclusions can be drawn from published by the Ministry of labour of Finland results of the experiment on the introduction of an unconditional basic income. It was attended by 2 thousand unemployed, who for two years received a monthly tax-free payment of €560 in the absence of any requirement to be active in the labour market (this payment is different from traditional unemployment benefits). Data obtained from the results of the experiment were compared with the results of the examination in the control group, which consisted of just receiving an allowance.At the same time, as noted by the head of the research group of the social insurance institution of Finland Minna Julianne, on the basis of the study it is impossible to say with certainty that improving the well-being of the intervention group was due to it getting a basic income, although similar results have previously shown by experiments in other countries.Data on the impact of basic income on employment turned out to be inaccurate — during the second year of the experiment in the country has tougher requirements for recipients of unemployment benefits, that is, the participants in the control group. As a result, if at the end of the first year of employment in both experimental groups was almost identical, then the second recipients of the basic income worked five days longer than the control group (78 and 73 days per year, respectively). “But the effect of the second year of the experiment cannot be separated from the effects of the reform of unemployment benefits”,— said the chief researcher of the Institute for economic research VATT Kari hämäläinen. Thus, according to the Professor, University of Helsinki, Helena Blomberg-Kroll, a basic income, it seems, has supported respondents, which until the experiment and behaved actively, and those who originally was in a difficult situation, it did not help. For example, for families with children who received a basic income, employment indicators improved during both years of the experiment, but these data are considered as fully reliable is impossible due to their small share in the sample.Heterogenedigit results of the Finnish experiment, however, important in giving an idea of the difficulty of testing the theoretical characteristics of basic income in practice. Experiments of this kind are from the 1960-ies, but so far no one, including Finland, failed to obtain reliable data on its effects even at the micro level — not to mention the national. While there is still no experimental data on how a basic income affects other objects of social protection, such as the health of its recipients. However, up to this point experiments with basic income can continue — especially after the unfolding of the pandemic of coronavirus full-scale economic crisis, which will increase the influence of populist politicians.Anastasia Manuylova