Warm upStarting Tuesday, a select group of people in Germany will begin receiving €1,200 a month, no questions asked. The experiment will test the feasibility of a universal basic income.
- What industry do you work in and what is your role?
- What are your responses in your role / position?
- Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
- How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
- What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
- How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
- What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?
1.
The study, the first of three parts of the Pilotproject Grundeinkommen (Basic Income Pilot Project), will provide 122 participants with €1,200 ($1,420) a month for a period of three years. Participants did not have to prove a financial need and can work as much or little as they like throughout the experiment.
2.
“They don’t have to do anything for it except fill in seven online questionnaires during those three years,” says a description of the experiment on the project’s website. Interest in taking part was overwhelming. When the application process began last August, more than 1.5 million people had volunteered within a week.
3.
Organizers then narrowed it down to 1,500 participants. Of those, a randomly selected 122 people will receive the monthly allowance. The remaining participants will serve as a control group. Instead of the stipend, they will merely be compensated for completing the questionnaires. At the end of the study, researchers will compare the two groups.
4.
The money comes from about 150,000 donors and is tax-free for all recipients. In the end, every participant will get €43,200, adding up to a total of €5.2 million for the project. All of this has been initiated by a Berlin-based public charity.
What do you expect will happen to the participants during the three years? What (if anything) will change in their lives?