Basic income study launches in Germany

The project, conducted in partnership with the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, is the first long-term unconditional basic income trial to be carried out in Germany.

Similar studies have taken place in other countries, including Finland. Participants in the German experiment will not be means-tested and may also earn as much money as they want in addition to the basic income.

The study will give 120 participants 1,200 euros a month for the next three years, and another 1,380 participants will serve as a comparison group.

During the research, which is being funded by 140,000 private donors, participants will complete six online questionnaires including questions about employment, consumer behaviour, values ​​and health.

Jürgen Schupp, senior research fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research, told Der Spiegel that the study has been designed so that the researchers can “clearly and exclusively attribute changes in people’s behaviour and attitudes to the payment of money – and not to any other factors”.