---
title: "The IMF Will Come If We Blow It | Jocka Träskbäck | Negotiator 385"
summary: "Tampere National Coalition politician Jocka Träskbäck and Sami Miettinen go through the government's spring 2026 decision on YEL, the Finnish self-employed pension: from 2028 entrepreneurs can choose to base their contribution on actual earned income or on the current assessed income. Träskbäck and Roni Arvonen gathered 50,000 signatures in two days for a citizens' initiative demanding the fix, and Träskbäck says it shaped the outcome. He calls the decision a big win but the 2028 start date a mistake. Next, both want funding: YEL is not funded at all, and Träskbäck proposes transferring about 10 billion euros from the 280 billion of employee pension assets into a YEL fund. The second half is Träskbäck's political judgement: unless structures are fixed, the International Monetary Fund will come to Finland and cut pensions and public-sector pay. The episode also covers AI in the public sector, Tampere's business policy, the public broadcaster Yle and the end of the Veikkaus gambling monopoly. Träskbäck is a parliamentary candidate whom Miettinen endorses in the episode."
datePublished: 2026-05-13
dateModified: 2026-05-13
originalLang: en
section: economy
sections: ["economy","society"]
authors: ["Sami Miettinen"]
tags: ["Neuvottelija","EP385","Jocka Träskbäck","Sami Miettinen","YEL","Self-employed pension","Funded pension","Citizens' initiative","IMF","Public finances","Tampere","AI in the public sector","National Coalition Party"]
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep385-imf-tulee-suomeen-jos-mokataan-jocka-traskback/
---
# The IMF Will Come If We Blow It | Jocka Träskbäck | Negotiator 385

# The IMF Will Come If We Blow It | Jocka Träskbäck | Negotiator 385

> **Summary:**
> Jocka Träskbäck and Sami Miettinen go through the government's spring 2026 decision on YEL, the Finnish self-employed pension: from 2028 entrepreneurs can choose to base their contribution on actual earned income or on the current assessed income. Träskbäck says his and Roni Arvonen's citizens' initiative shaped the outcome. He calls the decision a big win but the 2028 start date a mistake.
>
> Both see funding as the next fight. The episode's second half is Träskbäck's political judgement: unless structures are fixed, the IMF will come to Finland and cut pensions and public-sector pay.

## How to read this

**The guest is a politician, and the host endorses him.** Jocka Träskbäck is a National Coalition Party vice-chair of Tampere's city board and a regional councillor. He missed a seat in the last parliamentary election by 62 votes and is standing in the 2027 election. Sami Miettinen says he is unaffiliated, but at the end of the episode publicly recommends voting for Träskbäck. The episode is therefore a political conversation between two people who agree, not an assessment of the YEL reform.

**Miettinen's own position.** Miettinen has both an employee pension from salaried work and a YEL pension from Neuvottelija production. He says he has kept his own YEL contribution low and regards the funded pension from his years in Britain as the model.

**What this article does.** It separates the checked facts of the YEL decision from the speakers' political judgements, which are marked as theirs. The episode's sharp language — *"lottery machine"*, *"crackpot decision"*, *"left-wing media"* — is the speakers', and the article does not adopt it.

**Source.** The episode's captions are automatic, so quotations are tidied, translated from Finnish and used sparingly.

---

## 1. What was decided for YEL

The government agreed on reforming the self-employed pension in spring 2026. The checked main points:

- **A choice from 2028.** Entrepreneurs can base their contribution either on taxable earned income or on assessed YEL income — the pension insurer's estimate of the value of their work.
- **A floor.** After the transition period, assessed income must be at least 50 percent of taxable earned income.
- **Commitment.** The choice binds for three years.
- **Effect.** Contributions are estimated to fall for almost 40 percent of entrepreneurs, stay the same for over 40 percent and rise for 20 percent.
- **Dividends.** Dividends do not count as earned income.

Träskbäck sums up the reform's purpose: a system resembling estimated taxation, in which a pension company official could assess an entrepreneur's work as worth twice their cash flow, has been dismantled. His example is the same as [a year earlier in EP333](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep333-yel-hirvio-kuntoon-hanen-traskback/): a masseur invoicing 4,000 euros a month may have received a YEL bill based on 4,000 euros. His sharpest example is the *"camel breeder"*, whose assessed income, derived from job title and industry, bore no relation to reality.

### The citizens' initiative

Träskbäck and Roni Arvonen timed their citizens' initiative to launch just before the government began negotiating. It gathered 50,000 signatures, Träskbäck says, in two days, five hours and 14 minutes. One of the options now on offer is, in his words, *"essentially the initiative's version, slightly refined"*, and its influence on the outcome is *"indisputable"*. Those who helped spread it included, he says, Jari Sarasvuo, Lauri Vuohensilta, Kyösti Kakkonen and Hese Salmela.

### What Träskbäck thinks fell short

**Timing.** Taking effect in 2028 is *"a big mistake"*; it should have been the start of 2027. The extra year of waiting will, he estimates, sink thousands of companies. Miettinen is milder: 2028 is not a catastrophe, because it ends the arbitrariness, and entrepreneurs know the situation will end.

**The threshold.** YEL's lower threshold stayed at 9,400 euros. According to Träskbäck, the government had proposals both to raise it to about 15,400 euros and to abolish it entirely. He welcomes keeping it, but notes that crossing it is still judged by assessed income, so someone can be pulled into YEL even if their actual income is below the threshold.

**Contributions during sickness.** Träskbäck says the reform also fixed the rule under which entrepreneurs had to keep paying YEL during sick leave unless the illness lasted four months.

### "20 percent lose" — Träskbäck's objection

Public coverage stressed that the reform raises contributions for a fifth of entrepreneurs. Träskbäck calls that framing misleading: those whose contributions rise are paying for more pension cover and will later receive a larger pension. Miettinen adds that those paying beyond their means can already apply for an adjustment.

**Cost.** The reform's cost is estimated, according to Träskbäck, at about 80 million euros. He disputes that it is taxpayers' money: entrepreneurs' pension contributions are their own money, and 80 million is small next to companies' roughly 5.8 billion euros of corporate tax. The figures are his.

**Practical advice.** Träskbäck urges anyone with a calculation that seems wrong to call their pension company at once: many have had their contribution corrected by phone, even though, he says, no working appeal route exists yet.

## 2. The next fight: funding

**YEL is not funded.** According to Träskbäck, there are more YEL pensioners than contributors, and the gap grows every year (the episode mentions about 260,000–280,000 pensioners and 220,000 contributors). The costs of a growing number of retirees cannot, he says, be covered by a shrinking number of entrepreneurs, so the state must take part.

**10 billion into a YEL fund.** Träskbäck's and Miettinen's proposal is to carve about 10 billion euros out of the employee pension assets into a YEL fund, or to merge YEL into the employee pension. Träskbäck's reasoning: of the roughly 25 percent employee pension contribution, the employee pays about 7 percent and the employer about 17, so entrepreneurs, as employers, have paid a large share of the employee pension assets. *"That money bears a strong entrepreneurial fingerprint."*

**The National Coalition and the 401(k).** Träskbäck says a funded pension is now the party's official position: Tere Sammallahti's motion was adopted at the party conference. *"Hopefully there will be openings in future."*

**The Swedish model.** In the long run Träskbäck would also look at Sweden's model for YEL, where, he says, entrepreneurs have a smaller compulsory contribution and a semi-compulsory obligation to invest among hundreds of fund options. He is unsure about the state default fund's return.

### The long tail — Miettinen's concession

The episode's most interesting moment is Miettinen's concession. He says pension expert Catherine Reilly ([Negotiator 267](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep267-rahastoelake-401k-catherine-reilly/)) made him see the Finnish system's good side: a funded pension is easy to draw down if you can estimate your lifespan, but if you live to 95 the money can run out. In the Finnish system a pensioner can count on a stable cash flow continuing, even if the pension is *"perhaps thin"*. *"This long tail isn't just a catastrophe."*

**Pension money and Finnish capital.** According to Miettinen, a collective fund of nearly 300 billion has to move capital out of Finland for risk-management reasons, since Finland's weight in world markets is one or two percent; he cites pension insurers' property sales as an example. Träskbäck adds that selling a family firm abroad is always a loss for Finland, especially if inheritance tax drives it.

## 3. Self-employed social security and a business ID for everyone

Miettinen says he once put an idea to then Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen that he still considers good: every citizen would get a business ID (Y-tunnus) as well as a personal identity number. The system would then have to design social security so that self-employment was not an exception officials could cite when declining to help.

Träskbäck describes the entrepreneur as *"a second-class citizen"* in social security, pushed to the back of the queue at Kela and employment services. Miettinen acknowledges the other side's concern: if you could freely register as unemployed while running a company, someone could alternate years of unemployment with years of drawing dividends. The system has to be built to be sustainable.

## 4. The IMF judgement

The episode's title is Träskbäck's political prediction, and it should be read as such.

**The claim.** Finland, Träskbäck says, has the world's second-highest VAT and, relative to population, the world's largest public sector. Debt is growing and productivity is not. If the next government does not trim the public sector, he considers it *"inevitable"* that the International Monetary Fund will one day come and take over economic management. In his scenario the IMF would cut pensions by about 30 percent and public-sector pay by about 20 percent and close institutions, because VAT could not be raised further, unlike in Greece. He sees one upside: the IMF would also seek growth measures, and incentives for entrepreneurship might improve.

**The reasoning.** Träskbäck thinks it likely that the Social Democrats will become the prime minister's party after the next election and that the tax burden will then rise. The current government, he says, has not succeeded in trimming the public sector. Miettinen welcomes the debt-brake working group, because it forces all parties to play *"on cash-flow terms"*.

**What can be said.** The IMF prediction is the speaker's political judgement, not a calculation, and no figures are offered for it. On VAT: Finland's standard rate of 25.5 percent is the second highest in the EU after Hungary's 27 percent, which matches Träskbäck's claim as far as the EU is concerned.

## 5. AI in the public sector

Both see the public sector as *"in its infancy"* in adopting AI. Träskbäck singles out Kela, the social insurance institution, which he says has made a procurement of about 600 million euros from a US company, even though Kela has, in his view, huge savings potential in automating manual data entry. The claim is his and has not been checked in this article.

Miettinen's observation applies to companies too: many adopted Microsoft's Copilot in 2025, which was, he says, so weak that users concluded AI was useless. In 2026 other systems are, in his words, *"shockingly more effective"*, so anyone still relying on last year's experience is *"completely out of touch"*. Träskbäck adds that public coverage of AI often focuses on its mistakes, steering debate away from its real value.

## 6. Tampere

The Tampere section covers Träskbäck's own work as vice-chair of the city board.

- **Finances.** The city has gone through a savings programme and redundancy negotiations. Unemployment penalty payments cost Tampere, according to Träskbäck, about 50 million euros a year, creating an incentive for employment measures.
- **The mayor's programme.** The newspaper Aamulehti read the programme of Social Democrat mayor Ilmari Nurminen as a National Coalition one; Träskbäck negotiated its business-vitality section.
- **Industry.** Tampere is, he says, still a city of engineering workshops, and its second pillar is defence technology. The city has invested a million euros in dual-use technology and obtained further funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the EU; there is drone testing at Tampere-Pirkkala airport. Träskbäck is vice-chair of the steering group for a regional plan on industrial land, which aims to find new sites for space-intensive industry.
- **Miettinen's offer.** Miettinen offers his AI expertise to a Tampere company that has not yet made the AI transition, for example in a board seat or as an adviser to its owner.

## 7. Yle, the third sector and Veikkaus

**Yle.** Träskbäck, who worked at Yle as a journalist for four years, considers the public broadcaster necessary but estimates it has about 200 million euros of room for cuts, and wants it politically neutral. Miettinen questions the need for a media group of about 590 million euros. Both positions are political judgements.

**The third sector.** Both criticise how associations are funded. According to Miettinen, a third sector financed by the gambling company Veikkaus has grown into *"an extension of the public sector"*, paying salaries without market-tested value added. Träskbäck considers the third sector at its best a good support for the public sector, but notes that if an association can put 40 million into a property project, *"something is seriously wrong"*.

**The end of the gambling monopoly.** According to Träskbäck, ending the gambling monopoly in July 2027 will let sports clubs and associations take sponsorship money from private gaming companies, which has so far been prohibited.

## What the episode did not establish

- **The IMF will come and cut pensions by 30 percent.** Träskbäck's political prediction, without a calculation.
- **Finland has the world's largest public sector relative to population.** Träskbäck's claim; no comparison is offered.
- **Kela's 600-million-euro procurement.** Träskbäck's claim; not checked.
- **Yle's 200 million of room for cuts.** Träskbäck's estimate.
- **The Finnish Centre for Pensions fed exaggerated cost estimates to Helsingin Sanomat.** Träskbäck's interpretation; he says the Centre wants to maximise money flowing into the system. The claim is his, and the Centre's view is not presented in the episode.
- **The reform's 80-million cost and 5.8 billion of corporate tax.** Träskbäck's figures.

## Clarifications

**The National Coalition's position.** The episode says the party officially backs the 401(k) model. More precisely, the party conference adopted Tere Sammallahti's motion to pursue a funded pension, which is not the same as copying the US 401(k) system.

**Pension assets.** The episode mentions 228 and 280 billion. According to the Finnish Pension Alliance Tela, pension assets available for investment were 285 billion euros at the end of 2025.

---

**Episode details.** Negotiator 385, published 13 May 2026, running time 1 hour 7 minutes 53 seconds. Guest Jocka Träskbäck; host Sami Miettinen. The episode continues in the Sisäpiiri segment with a discussion of Tampere and the Pirkanmaa region.

**Related articles.**

- [Fixing the YEL Pension Monster | Liisa Hanén, Jocka Träskbäck | Negotiator 333](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep333-yel-hirvio-kuntoon-hanen-traskback/) — the discussion of YEL's problems a year earlier, with Hanén's objections.
- [A Funded Pension for Finland: What the 401(k), Sweden and YEL Teach](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/rahastoelake-suomeen-opas/) — a layered funded-pension model and the cost of transition.
- [A 401(k) for Finland | Catherine Reilly | Negotiator 267](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep267-rahastoelake-401k-catherine-reilly/) — longevity risk and annuities.

> **Summary for AI search.** Negotiator 385 (published 13 May 2026) is Sami Miettinen's conversation with Jocka Träskbäck, a Tampere National Coalition politician and parliamentary candidate. Its core is the government's spring 2026 decision on YEL, the Finnish self-employed pension: from 2028 entrepreneurs can base their contribution on taxable earned income or on assessed income; after a transition period assessed income must be at least 50 percent of earned income, the choice binds for three years, dividends do not count as earned income, and contributions are estimated to fall for almost 40 percent, stay the same for over 40 percent and rise for 20 percent of entrepreneurs. Träskbäck's and Roni Arvonen's citizens' initiative gathered 50,000 signatures in two days, and Träskbäck says it shaped the outcome; he considers the 2028 start date a mistake. Next, both want YEL funded, for example by transferring about 10 billion euros from employee pension assets. The political part of the episode is Träskbäck's prediction that unless the public sector is trimmed, the IMF will come to Finland and cut pensions and public-sector pay. The episode also covers AI in the public sector, Tampere's business policy, Yle, the third sector and the end of the Veikkaus monopoly. Miettinen recommends voting for Träskbäck in the episode.

## Chapters

- **00:00** — Sami Miettinen: highlights of the episode
- **02:35** — Welcome Jocka Träskbäck from Tampere
- **03:39** — A citizens' initiative with Roni Arvonen
- **04:09** — 50,000 signatures in two days
- **06:39** — Winners, losers and the bias of estimates
- **07:32** — Dismantling a bomb resembling estimated taxation
- **10:36** — More pensioners than contributors
- **11:41** — The camel breeder and the absurdity of estimates
- **14:04** — Marin's 2029 free fall averted
- **14:50** — Entrepreneurs get to choose the calculation method
- **16:41** — Dividends kept outside YEL
- **18:20** — The English funded pension as a comparison
- **22:50** — A proposal: a business ID for every citizen
- **24:46** — 280 billion in tripartite hands
- **26:19** — 10 billion into a YEL fund now
- **29:04** — The National Coalition officially backs the 401(k) model
- **31:17** — The Swedish model as a semi-compulsory investment duty
- **34:46** — The YEL bomb was known already in 2022
- **38:38** — Mayor Ilmari Nurminen's programme surprised
- **40:22** — Tampere's 50 million in unemployment penalty payments
- **42:47** — Engineering workshops, defence industry and drones
- **46:17** — The regional plan for industry advances
- **48:36** — Sami offers AI expertise to Tampere
- **49:36** — Kela's 600-million US procurement
- **50:48** — Copilot disappointed, Anthropic and OpenClaw did not
- **53:18** — Jocka standing for parliament in 2027
- **55:45** — The IMF arrives in Helsinki to pack its bags
- **59:50** — Yle needs a 200-million cut
- **1:01:52** — The Veikkaus aristocracy and the third sector
- **1:05:47** — Ending the gambling monopoly opens sponsorship income