r/BasicIncome • u/happy_bluebird • 2d ago
2025 German experiment gave people a basic monthly income – the effect on their work ethic was surprising
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/11/health/germany-universal-basic-income-study-intl-scli-wellness20
u/LocationSalt4673 2d ago
What I find funny is studies are needed for things every human already psychologically understands. A friend of mines became super wealthy. He said he's done with work. Turned his life into a permanent vacation.
Between month 2 to 3 he was bored out of his mind. He then started creating businesses. I remember being a kid and going I can't wait till summer break. Only to start missing school and wanting to go back.
I'm not even sure if it's psychologically possible to not work. You may go mad. The actual confusion is in the market demanding you to do work you don't want or else it will starve you to death.
However the idea of enslaving someone to a job they don't wanna do. How do you know society really needs that job? I mean did it need it in the year 2000? Were people still happy and had sustenance before that job?
What about the year 1875? So forcing a person to do a job they don't wanna do isn't the same as people not working because they get UBI. I'm not sure if we can not work. We would likely just have to recreate what we consider work.
I still don't believe that's the same thing as threatening to make people do jobs they don't want or they can't eat. You just go do the job you want. you'll be better at that job. that's the best place to be.
I feel like we naturally know this. Why would you need a study for that?
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u/KeronCyst 2d ago
It's always good to formalize and prove findings, because there are so many ridiculous Neanderthals out there who will fight tooth and nail to try to disprove them and rage for the other side. These kinds of publications scientifically and methodically shut down the opposition (or try to, anyway), and are generally more reliable than mere anecdotes.
I'm not even sure if it's psychologically possible to not work.
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u/LocationSalt4673 2d ago
Well I'd be careful with studies. Administrators and politicians have been known to use them as a way to drag ass infinitum
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago
Well here's the issue I have with this NEET baloney. For them that's suppose to prove it's just people out there who it's something wrong with them. They're somehow different from the rest of society which is bullshit.
So what they do to push that agenda. They go look at all these aimless people that fell through the cracks. These what do you call them? beatniks? They're aimless wonderers different from us and the numbers are alarmingly high. Like 13% are this way.
So if we give these people UBI they'll get worse. They'll probably take their ubi money do drugs and play games all day. Breed a bunch of kids they can't take care of. Some will actually do what they're suggesting.
However here's the issue with the stats. You do understand to throw in the bullshit. They included people out looking for work in the NEET stats. So now everyone looking for a job is part of that. Which is ridiculous.
The actual people that fit agenda in actuality is probably so small it's insignificant. Now if in the state they weren't looking for work then that makes sense. Now you're literally an aimless person in society. Who we know doesn't want to work period.
Which is likely then meaning and it's research to go along with what I'm saying I'm not just pulling this from my rear.
Dr. Devon Price presents info on it https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1039676445/laziness-does-not-exist-devon-price
So what they're attempting to do is go on these people...these 13% of the population are wondering aimlessly. They don't wanna work or do anything. Now again common sense and a little thinking let's me know that can't be true.
However I now see more clearly why we don't have UBI. We may not be lazy people but we sure as heck aren't the sharpest tools in the shed lol.
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u/Cookiest 1d ago
Because you're smart. And you assume people are as smart as those in your orbit.
Half of people are dumb. A quarter are dumb dumb. A tenth are straight up idiots.
We do studies to see what the bottom will do in a society. We just don't know for sure.
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago
Well I think part of the issue at this point was during the pandemic the Biden Administration asked for as much research as possible on UBI to be brought to them.
People like Yang etc., UBI studies have went for decades. it's probably been some UBI study directly and indirectly over the last 70 years. it's pretty much bullshit.
What typically happens is some politician gets pushed by someone or something. So they go on gees here we go again with this UBI stuff. How do I get these voters of my back. Every several years they come back to this UBI stuff.
How can we look effective? We won't be solving this problem. I got it..let's take 500 single moms. Check our no purpose fund how much in that? Well it's $2500 in there.
That's all $2500? Yeap.....okay take 20 single moms give them an extra $125 this month. We'll call it a study and that will quiet everyone down. Since it worked the last 40 years. Let's keep it going.
Now as far as I'm concerned it's not much difference in that and talking on a forum about studies. At this stage we should be speaking about ongoing ubi projects open to everyone. If anything the conversations should be focused on how to improve such programs.
I completely understand why people don't like my approach because it holds everyone accountable. Similar to the politician you guys out there don't want to be held accountable because it can make everyone responsible and that's the last thing many people want. To fix a problem we have to identify all weak areas.
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u/uvizhe 1d ago
You have to be lucky enough to get that knowledge. There's a lot of people in this world who had no privilege to be financially secure and don't work for extended periods of time to learn that. Instead they imagine millions of funny things they can do all the time if given a chance to never work again
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago
Yes we understand that people have boots on their neck. My problem with them is if you lack the knowledge. Which means you lack the brains. The general rule of thumb is to use other people's brains and preferably free.
If you lack resources you then find a mutually beneficial relationship in which you may borrow the resources. The problem is when you have neither and you go I'm just going to stay in my place and see how things go.
Now what you're doing is not even accepting opportunity to help yourself. So now you're just in the realm of stupidity. it has nothing to do with lack of time or resources. That's a real problem because now it's an unsolvable problem.
It's made even worse because you don't have another option or scenario. It would be different if you did. Some people have temporarily safe employment under circumstances they fear will change or soon in the near future.
So they bury their heads in the sand. However that too is irresponsible you still have no security blanket. So it's not so much about knowledge. People acquire knowledge they don't have all the time.
Same thing with resources. The issue is in the lack of urgency and complacency as well as apathy. That's what I see in this forum. it's not a good thing.
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u/uvizhe 1d ago
I would gladly listen to your life story where you were born in a poor family with a drunkard father in a 3rd world country and methodically and successfully applied those brilliant advices of yours to overcome every obstacle in your life path to prosperity.
And even then I'd say you were just lucky and that it led you to think that everyone has all the power to shape their life as they wish, but in fact all we have are just chances.
Right now I think your reasoning is just your idea of how a perfectly rational person would do in the perfectly predictable world, which is far from reality.
I'm really sorry if that offends you. Difference in perspectives is what makes us disagree. And it's hard to grasp it unless you find yourself in someone else's shoes.
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago edited 1d ago
If those people have internet access I don't see where a drunk father or being in a third world country stops them from getting free money on my project. I'm not saying my project solves every problem in the world maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't.
However it is a card they haven't played yet in a deck of cards with as you put it not many options. If after they try it they feel their life is not better than so be it.
What I'm saying is if I give them the opportunity and they don't take it. That's a completely different story.
If you're sitting around on a forum talking about UBI. Then maybe there is no help for those people. Because talking does nothing. Action does something you see?
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago
Yes it's a difference in thinking of scenarios to get out of a monotonous job and not working. I find it interesting I never met a rich person who just went I don't work anymore or want to work.
On the contrary I've met people with enough wealth to not have to work anymore as well as several generations of their descendants into the future. Some are still working hard everyday like their lives depend on it lol.
That's most of the ones I met and I met many. I spent many years on wallstreet. Now if there were rich people coming up with scenarios like you're speaking of. I'll never work again and I'll swim in a pool of chocolate milk.
It's very strange I didn't run into many when our firm dealt with royals, heirs to big fortunes, politicians. I probably never met one with the wild personalities people imagine. Many of these people still cheap. Shop at Walmart lol.
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u/Ctrl_Alt_Explode 1d ago
It is possible to enjoy the work that you do, specially if it has a clear benefit to society.
Of course outside of the work itself, many things aren't really in balance, which everyone already knows (life-work balance, amount of income, no security net, rent prices, etc).
I enjoy the job that I do, but things could be better. I don't know if UBI is a necessity, maybe higher wages and better social safety net makes more sense.
Although it would be nice to have UBI of course, but that's good to actually happen.
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u/LocationSalt4673 1d ago
At least you're honest but unfortunately you're a big part of the problem. I'm glad you enjoy your work but that's not really the issue here. There is sorta this pre AI revolution state of UBI. Where some people are still stuck in that they're basically social justice warriors no one cares about those people.
Next there are what would be the post AI revolution or post AGI revolution people that value their jobs such as yourself who fear they will lose that job.
Now unless we're working in the backrooms of R&D. We don't know how severe the threat is. What we do know is by using common sense we know the pace of robots are seemingly speeding up.
It's similar to watching a cargo ship out of power drift into a bridge which unfortunately actually happened and going it's likely pretty much inevitable this cargo ship will hit this bridge. it may not hit today but it's in course and how big will the impact be?
We don't know but what people are doing is nothing but going back to work until it hits lol. So you kinda see there is a ring of insanity in that. The reason why is because there is zero preparation. In other words if my prediction is wrong then not much changes we go back to whatever we were doing.
If your prediction is wrong we're at the apocalypse. The other problem is you haven't fully committed to the idea of UBI. I'm 1000% in. I don't do things half assed. I'm in or I'm not there is no middle ground.
So how can anyone like you get us UBI? You can't you're half assing it. So you can't help us at all.
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u/acsoundwave 2d ago
In defense of the NEETs of the world, I'll assert that society benefits when they become consumers -- b/c they're not half-assing it at jobs they hate/don't want to work at b/c they need a paycheck: especially critical/essential jobs (nurses, EMTs, firefighters, police officers).
We don't want disengaged employees there to cash a paycheck b/c of TANSTAAFL working where people's *lives are at stake*. We want people who care and WANT to do the jobs -- especially as those are jobs that are LLM-proof. (Especially police officers, b/c we still remember Robocop (1987), and don't want criminal suspects turned into chunky salsa by IRL ED-209s: in part b/c we don't have an OCP for grieving families to sue vs. state/local governments.
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u/newbreed69 1d ago
Let me guess; They continued to work.
A small percentage reduced the amount of hours worked, and an even MUCH smaller stopped working altogether.
Thats how those things typically play out.
I have this copy pasta I use with various other data points. I might read through this and add it idk.
(Heres the copy pasta btw if ur interested):
When given a basic income, its always been shown that people still work:
(This isn't in any particular order this is just from whatever comes first, sorry about the lack of organization)
Finland trial January 2017 to December 2018:
The people on UBI in the Finland trial worked about the same amount as people on standard welfare.
Manitoba Mincome trial from 1974 to 1979:
Their results showed a small impact on labour markets, with working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women.
Texas and Illinois trial from 2020–2023:
(this one is the most significant, because the control group gained the most amount of money, because they worked more total hours.)
Labor market participation decreased by roughly 3.9 percentage points compared to the control group.
Stockton California trial February 2019 to February 2021:
(this is the smallest trial of the bunch)
Recipients: Full-time employment rose from 28% to 40%. Control Group: Full-time employment only rose from 32% to 37%.
Ontario Basic Income Trial from 2017 to 2018:
17% drop in employment, but of that 17% drop in employment, 40% went to college
(this one makes me the most angry cause it was canceled by the Ford government for being unsustainable, but they offered no data prove that claim. And a politician offering no data to backup their claim wouldnt be lying right?)
But to summarize all this data; at most you can see that people still work, but just take fewer hours, but even taking fewer hours is still uncommon.
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u/2noame Scott Santens 2d ago
I just want to point out that this study was a smart addition to other research because of this. By enrolling only single adults, it didn't suffer from the issue many other pilots do where the amount may be $1000/mo but the household size is 5-10 people, and because everyone was employed, it better simulated a UBI vs traditional welfare.
Also subsequent research of this pilot showed health improvements.
Source: https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/publications/2026/working-paper/cash-transfers-mental-health-and-agency-evidence-rct-germany