[hiAndrewQuinn]

US-Finland expat here, and yes, I quite like my union. But I especially like my unemployment fund: 100 euros a year gets me 50% of my pre-tax salary for a year if I lose or leave my job.

Unemployment insurance plans seem underrated in general by FTEs, both in the US and elsewhere. Without it, your ability to exercise both halves of "voice or exit" in the corporate world are severely curtailed. Like life insurance, it's relatively hard to game as a policy - it's usually pretty clear when you lose your salaried job, just like it's usually pretty clear when you die. I see few downsides, especially if you live cheap enough to pay all of your bills on that X% of your income anyway.

[bluGill]

$100 euros a year does not get you 50% of your pre-tax salary for a year. That 100 might be what you paid, but that is not anywhere close to what that costs. Do not confuse the cost of something with the price you pay. At 100 per year they should just make it free. I'm not sure what the real cost of unemployment is per year (there are people who's job it is to figure this out - they have more data than me), but it is thousands per year.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

Not totally sure what argument you're making here. Say you're a professional making $100k per year, with a 1% chance per year of losing your job. A 50% unemployment insurance policy like I described in a private market should cost you a little over $500/yr. That still seems like a good deal to me, and probably to most people.

[bluGill]

Your chance of losing your job is a lot more than 1%.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

And life insurance is more expensive when you're 85 compared to 25. Do you understand how insurance works?