The idea of guaranteeing everyone an unconditional basic income seems tempting to many people. But laypeople and experts alike have been arguing for many years about whether โ and, above all, how โ it might work. A pilot project in Berlin is now looking for new answers to these and related questions, which could rekindle the debate in Germany.
When she first read the email, PhD student Lisa Buchenauer assumed it was spam. Sitting there in the tram in Leipzig on her way home, she scrolled up and down, and just couldn't believe it: she, of all people, was to receive a basic monthly income with no strings attached for three whole years. That was in July , and Buchenauer's bank account has been credited with Euro every month since then. This is the first pilot project on basic income in Germany, and it involves three successive studies.
The first study, which is ongoing, has a total of participants; of them, including Lisa Buchenauer, are to receive a guaranteed sum every month for three years. The idea is to test the effects on the recipients by comparison with a control group. And many of the candidates also signed petitions and letters urging the federal government to establish a universal basic income UBI.
The US economist Milton Friedman espoused the idea back in , and some even trace it back several centuries to the English statesman and Renaissance humanist Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia.
Various basic income models are under discussion, ranging from a flat-rate payment for everyone and the abolition of all other state transfer payments e. The classic arguments for UBI are the many jobs that will be lost to new technology, the heavy administrative costs of social security offices, and dwindling confidence in the state.
