“It’s not an escape, it’s a trampoline.” Researchers have tested for three years the impact of universal basic performance. One of the main conclusions: beneficiaries continued to work on average 40 hours a week.
One universal basic yield – Or, in other words, “free money” for everyone, without the obligation to work – it may seem an unrealizable dream. But several economists have seriously pondered the advantages of the idea and developed models about how it could work in various societies – the richest man in the world Elon Musk and the late Pope Francis has already defended the concept.
This is an issue that Germany has been discussing since the 1970s. In a way, the country already offers a form of basic performance for those who are unemployed. But unlike current unemployment subsidy systems, universal basics are conceived as a monthly subsidy paid without any conditionsregardless of other income. That is, people can continue to work and make more money if they wish.
Give me money: Will I continue to work?
This is one of the big questions that German researchers answer with a long-term study called Basic Review Project-one of the world’s most comprehensive studies to empirically test the impact of unconditional basic performance.
The results have now been released, along with a documentary series that accompanies some of the study participants, Der Grosse Traum: Geld Für Alle (), held by Alexander Kleider.
More than two million people applied to participate in the study, started by the non-profit German organization Mein Grundeinkommen (my basic performance) and conducted by several research groups, including the German Institute for Economic Research (Diw Berlin).
Among the candidates, 122 individuals were randomly selected to receive 1,200 euros per month for three yearsfrom June 2021. A control group consisting of 1,580 people answered the same questions throughout the study, in order to compare the impact of performance on participants’ lives.
To guarantee comparable data, all people involved in the study were between 21 and 40 years old, lived alone and had a monthly net income between 1,100 and 2,600 euros.
Utopia results
The documentary series follows five of these lucky participants, the researchers responsible for qualitative and quantitative studies, as well as the Mein Grundeinkommen Association activists. The first episode of the series begins with Michael Bohmeyer, founder of the organization that has been fighting for over a decade for basic performance.
“I always wanted to do a documentary about unconditional basic performance because the theme fascinates me and because it seemed to me to be a response, a third way between capitalism and, say, socialism – a completely new approach,” Kleider explained. “I didn’t want to make an advertising movie; I was looking for a personal story. At one point I met Michael Bohmeyer and discovered the pilot project, and it was clear that what they were doing was exceptional.”
Until 2014, Bohmeyer was director general of a successful startup. As he abandoned the position, he remained as a passive co-owner, receiving a monthly distribution of profits in the amount of a thousand euros. Bohmeyer He faced this as his “basic personal income” And he firmly believed that everyone should have access to similar income, which led him to engage deeply in the cause.
However, the five participants portrayed in the series were selected to represent different personality types and lifestyles, two lived in Berlin and three in other smaller German cities.
Although this is not the main objective of the documentary, the series highlights the contrast between the idealism of activists such as Bohmeyer and the consumerist priorities of some participants. After all, they came to have, suddenly, another 1,200 euros monthly available, and Some spent this money quicklyas if they had won a television contest.
Bohmeyer admits in the documentary that “it would be frustrated” if the sole result of the experience was the participants to increase their “gross consumption, unreflected and as a way of distraction from other issues.”
The results
One of the main conclusions of the three -year study was that The beneficiaries of basic performance continued to work on average 40 hours a week, contrary to the myth that basic yield would make people lazy.
However, one significantly higher percentage of basic performance group participants changed jobscompared to the control group. The existence of a “financial mattress” may have encouraged this change.
It was also found that More people in the basic performance group started studiessometimes in parallel with work.
Professional changes occurred mainly in the first 18 months of the study period. After receiving the basic income, the beneficiaries reported feeling significantly more satisfied with their work situation-regardless of whether or not they have changed occupation.
Participants who received the basic income reported an increase in their level of life satisfaction, one of the aspects that the psychologist Susann Fiedler, director of the Institute of Cognition and Behavior, considered particularly revealing.
Who pays?
On May 1, Mein Grundinkommen randomly selected another group of people to receive basic performance for a year. The organization is investing more than 500 thousand euros, raised with several donors who believe in the idea.
But how could the unconditional basic performance be funded in practice?
The proposal is seen as a redistribution of wealth through taxation. According to activists calculations, Germany’s 10% richest would eventually contribute with a part of your income for all others. They estimate that 83% of the population would thus have access to more money. The remaining 7%, with average income, would not be affected by the redistribution scheme.
In times of growing populism, the activists of basic performance believe this is a way of combating discontent caused by inequality of income.
As they underline, the study clearly demonstrates that basic performance does not lead people to stop working.
“What we see is that the basic yield It’s not an escape, but a trampoline social. Basic performance enables people, ”said Klara Simon, current leader of the Mein Grundinkommen Association, at the press conference in which the results were presented.“ And who knows these results and still does not act, is opposing the potential of this society; the innovative power that sleeps in it; equal opportunities and stronger democracy. ”
