1w ago

German experiment gave people a basic monthly income – the effect on their work ethic was surprising

edition.cnn.com /2025/04/11/health/germany-universal-basic-income-study-intl-scli-wellness/index.html

A German experiment has found that people are likely to continue working full-time even if they receive no-strings-attached universal basic income payments.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250412140637/https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/11/health/germany-universal-basic-income-study-intl-scli-wellness/index.html

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

48 comments

Didn't Finland also try it, and found the same thing?
I really think UBI has no downsides.
- I believe a province in Canada was also trying it with promising results until a right-wing politician got elected and scrapped the trial program.
  
  Yup, Ontario had it for a small community and the people on it were doing great. They're still just running these programs in other areas to try and find the one with negative results so every country can point to that as their reason to not do it longterm.
  That's why you keep seeing 100 of these "trials".
- The downside is less money going towards the rich
  
  Still not hearing any downsides
- Yes, they did. Sadly the body that's studied the effects said the sample size (a couple thousand unemployed people) was too small... Gee, I wonder who would've designed the experiment in such way?
- It's money that has no value if it's truly universal. If it's not universal, but only a select group gets it, yep pretty much no downsides.
  
  Saying money is worthless if everyone has it is asinine. Gatekeeping shit is an idiot's idea of intelligence. The money won't change spending at the top levels because they already spend that much daily on services alone. But at the lower income brackets it generates lots of purchases on products and goods. It boosts manufacturing which in turns buoys stock market valuation and guarantees value for the investor.
  UBI is so good for everyone, even the super rich, that it's insane not to participate. But without the threat of lifestyle shock, the wealthy don't have leverage to make exasperated workers try to achieve more for less. It will literally help people with the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.
  If it's universal then it guarantees a minimal capital throughput at each nexus of value and the market. That's extra income at all levels from spending, taxes, and the buyer's unspent capital - it's huge and is a means to jumpstart any economy and keep it running for as long as the UBI flows.
  
  Tell me you don't understand income inequality without telling me you don't understand income inequality.
  
  If everyone is getting it but only the poorer are using it, it most certainly has value.
  
  Let's say it's set at $10k/year. To someone on $20k that's a 50% boost. To someone on 100k, it's only 10%. At a million a year it's down to 1%.
  If it's accompanied by a 20% tax, it would significantly rebalance income inequality, and provide a reliable financial buffer for the poor to negotiate from.

Not surprising to me - a Canadian study 10 or 15 years ago produced the same results - the only people who stopped working were moms who quit to take care of children, and students who returned to school (having quit school to work because their families needed money). The conventional "wisdom" that says getting free money will turn people into bums is a traditional conservative misconception that goes with thinking people are inherently bad.
- I don't even get this notion.
  "Everyone will become a lazy bum!". Humans are biologically coded with the want to do SOMETHING. If you took current day scenarios of people wanting to not work at all, that's only because WE HAVE TO WORK to live.
  People want to remove stress, not be "lazy".
  And lazy is such a defective term.
  
  A lot of "conventional wisdom" turns out to be just catchy little sayings that vindicate people's personal attitudes.

How totally surprising. The results have been the same every time this has been tried, so who could have possibly have foreseen that?
- Thank you! Honestly UBI studies only make me feel angry and hopeless anymore, since it’s so clear policy will never change.
  
  Of course not. If people aren't desperate any more, they're far harder to control.
- I'd quit my job... and do something that actually creates value in my community like being a teacher or some shit.

Noone likes doing nothing. Some may very well like doing something that is not directly or instantly netting a financial gain. Which is great, as every civilized culture needs artists and such. People who'd wither in some silly office-jobs but burst of creativity. Those who may currently be forced to a useless life just to have one.
But the opposition is clear, although not honest. A happy worker is a worker I can't oppress. If noone is always endangered of starving, who would do the jobs noone wants and are paid like shit or even dangerous?
No country will ever see a UBI. Sadly so.
- Except there are already countries that have UBI. Namely Iran and Macau. There are also multiple different state/cities across the world that also have it.
  What is unlikely is that happening in any country run by a capitalist system.
  
  That universal income can't even pay rent, at least in Iran, don't know about Macau.
  
  Didn't know Macau had one, and it sounds pretty nice, despite it being "too low and infrequent". But I don't know enough to form an opinion. At least good to know, thanks.
  Iran...i meant at least half-assedly civilized countries, not those running sharia-law, death-sentence, no press-freedom, systematic discrimination of minorities etc. Can't judge the effectiveness or the UBI there, and also don't really care.

If I had UBI that covered my food and shelter, I'd ... keep working because I love it. I'd probably work about half as much at my main (software engineer) job and split the new free time between taking some uni courses and a little more relaxation. My second job is as a farmer and, aside from the paperwork and accounting I don't fully understand yet in Japanese, I enjoy the work the majority of the time.
- I would potentially try to create something that may or may not be financially successful. Maybe it won't work for me, but if a bunch of people now feel able to do that some of them will be successful.

I'm gonna be real. Theres no way in hell I would continue to work fulltime.
Especially with the amount of wasted time at work when you can't even be productive if you wanted to.
- One of the unspoken benefits of UBI is that it rebalances the power dynamic between employer and employee. When your back's not against the wall financially, you can negotiate a lot better for a reasonable setup.
  People getting a decent living wage via a 3 day week should be the norm, not an exception. I've seen several studies where companies went to a 4 day week, for the same pay. Actual productivity went up, not down. It turns out a happy, rested workforce is a lot more than 20% more productive.

Literally every UBI test is a massive success and then we pretend like we shouldn't ever change anything.
We are going to have to kill world leaders to end the 40hr work week.

I remember hearing about a similar experiment from the 70's in Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-poverty-experiment-called-a-success-1.868562
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment

48 comments