Germany to vote on big universal basic income experiment

Germany to vote on big universal basic income experiment
Germany to vote on big universal basic income experiment

By German Press Agency

Translation by Raymond R. Watson, M.A.

See original post here.

Referendum? For real this time. 

In support of a basic income pilot project 95,000  signatures were collected. The referendum could take  place parallel to the German federal election. 

The people’s initiative “Hamburg Tests Basic Income” has, according to its own sources, successfully  completed its petition as the second and final stage  before a possible referendum. The initiators handed  over a total of 95,842 signatures to the Hamburger state election office in the Ministry of the Interior – and with over 30,000 more than necessary. “After three really intense weeks, we are super relieved that this worked,” said initiative spokeswoman Laura Braemswig. 

The initiators want to implement the first state pilot  project for an unconditional basic income in Germany.  The project is to be scientifically evaluated. “And we  want to contribute to the discussion no longer being  about whether we want a basic income, but about what  kind of a basic income we want,” said Braemswig. 

According to the initiators’ concept, the pilot project will run three years long and provide 2,000 people with a  basic income. For this purpose, streets in Hamburg will  be selected that are preferably representative of the  entire population. “Everyone who lives on this street can  then take part in the experiment.”

The aim is to investigate what this does to people, how  their lives change – whether at work, in social settings or  among family. “We are interested in all of this,” said  Braemswig. 

The experiment is expected to cost just below 46 million euros

According to the draft bill of the initiative, the maximum, total costs for the model project may not exceed 0.23 percent of the total budget of Hanseatic city Hamburg. “In the reference year presumed to be 2026 with a total  budget of 20.24 billion euros outlined according to mid term financial planning, this amount would correspond to  a sum of around 45.9 million euros.”

There is a period of six weeks for canvassing, thus  whether enough valid signatures have actually been  submitted. If this is the case, a referendum could be  held parallel to Germany’s federal election on  September 25, 2025. 

The probability that the Social Democrats and Green  party coalition will agree to the proposal and dispense  with the need for the referendum is relatively low.  The SPD considers the project to be a scam.  Moreover, there are already numerous studies on the  subject. 

At the beginning of 2020 the initiative had already collected the necessary number of 10,000 valid signatures. However, a subsequently planned  referendum was halted by the Hamburg Constitutional  Court in the summer of last year upon request of the  Social Democrats and Green party Senate. The authors  then revised their bill, put out a new initiative and  collected more than 16,000 signatures.

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