“Basic Income Pilot Project” – Insights and Outlook

What does the basic income pilot project aim to find out? Sascha Liebermann has been engaged with unconditional basic income for many years. In his analysis, the sociology professor examines the planned study in detail and also calls for more nuanced media coverage.

The proposal of an unconditional basic income has attracted considerable attention again this year. First, when contact restrictions were imposed in the spring due to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as a result of which many citizens lost income and the question arose of how this could be addressed. There were various petitions proposing a kind of basic income, at least for the duration of the crisis. In August, the occasion was different. Michael Bohmeyer, founder of the Berlin-based association “Mein Grundeinkommen”, announced at a press conference under the motto “We want to know” that he intended to carry out a pilot project on basic income. At his side were two researchers who explained the academic support for the project and presented the study design. No effort was spared on superlatives when presenting the study, as Manuel Franzmann recently observed; however, the association “Mein Grundeinkommen” has not exactly stood out so far for factual reporting on its activities. But then again: what association can claim to raise more than 600,000 euros per month in donations? The appearance is nevertheless somewhat irritating, since this is a research project in which the openness of the results was emphasized, while at the same time the association consistently highlights its success in view of previous winners of a basic income and their experiences. This should not be taken as an argument against carrying out the project or as questioning the seriousness of the researchers involved, and yet the initial constellation could be described as disconcerting, even if a certain marketing mindset has already entered the academic system some time ago. Jürgen Schupp, who is Professor of Empirical Social Research at FU Berlin and also Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), not only took part in the press conference; he also commented repeatedly in the media afterward and thus occupies a particular position. The DIW likewise announced the project in a press release, and the President of the DIW, Marcel Fratzscher, accompanied the announcement with a statement in which he—having previously always spoken against a UBI—endorsed the trial. The fact that such a pilot project could come about at all is thanks to the years of persistent public debate which, unfortunately, is often not presented with appropriate nuance in the media.

After the presentation of the first study—two more are to follow—in which it was initially planned that 120 participants would receive a basic income over a period of three years, the more than one million applicants needed to obtain a statistically relevant selection of subjects were reached very quickly; by now the number is almost two million. Donations likewise soon exceeded expectations, so that more than 120 people can receive a basic income over three years. Methodologically, the study follows a randomized controlled study design, as known from medical research, to investigate, for example, the effects of medications or individual active substances. Accordingly, there is a treatment group with participants who receive a basic income and a control group without it. The two groups will be compared with one another over the course of the study. It should also be added here that this is not simply a study. Given that UBI has for years been regarded as an alternative way of securing a basic social income, the results will be received publicly and may well feed back into the discussion. One can only hope that reporting on this pilot project will be more nuanced than on other occasions, because the example of Finland in particular showed alarmingly how biased reporting could be—in both directions—something that largely only came to an end with the presentation first of the preliminary report and then of the final report.

First of all, the study deserves credit for being conducted “in the open”; the relevant data must be collected and evaluated carefully—this is done primarily through standardized procedures (“quantitative research”). However, the study’s project dossier also mentions “qualitative research”; apparently, research interviews are also planned and will be compared with the standardized survey data. How these interviews will be analyzed is not explained specifically. To assess the scope of the project or the study, it is important to understand the framework conditions and to gain clarity about the methods of data collection and evaluation, because together they determine what conclusions can be drawn from the results—and which cannot. Such interrelations are not easy for laypeople to follow, because they presuppose certain knowledge of social science methods and their implications. This applies quite particularly to the tradition of “qualitative” research, since as a rule it is little known publicly. Nevertheless, at least a rough outline should be given here of what it is about, since nowadays the public is frequently confronted with results from academic studies.

Standardized data, as used in “empirical social research” (in itself an appropriating term, interpreted more broadly in this handbook), are characterized by the fact that lived practice in its concrete form is expressed only to the extent permitted by the collected variables (age, satisfaction, gender, etc.) and the answer options assigned to them. Anyone who has ever taken part in a survey knows this phenomenon. Respondents cannot express themselves in their own language, which makes access to their concrete interpretations of the world considerably more difficult. Yet finding these out is indispensable for understanding why they act as they do. The form of standardized data collection therefore captures attitudes rather superficially and roughly, without being able to access patterns of interpretation and action-guiding convictions of the persons concerned. Yet these are decisive for decision-making in practice. These methodological limitations of standardized procedures in researching the meaning-structured world of human lived practice are considerable, which is why it is always important to answer the question of whether the methods used are illuminating for the intended purpose. This is not a new insight; but considering that by far the greatest part of social science research is conducted using standardized procedures, one can speak of a considerable imbalance. To learn more about lived practice, transcriptions of technical recordings of open research interviews and group discussions, interactions, as well as diaries, correspondence, and the like are far more informative. Nothing of this is apparent in the project presentation, apart from the mentioned research interviews.

The field study also does not suspend the imperative to work; for the study participants, it remains in force as a context of justification for their actions during the project period. What does this mean for the expected results? Decisions that subjects make during the project must be capable of proving reasonable both in the present, given their privileged status as recipients of a basic income during the project, and in the future, after the project has ended. Incidentally, this was and is equally true for the winners of the “Mein Grundeinkommen” raffles, and it also applies to lottery winners, who are sometimes regarded in research as related to UBI because, thanks to their winnings, they could refrain from gainful employment. The validity of the imperative to work is therefore reinforced rather than weakened by the project’s limitation to three years, because the basic income recipients occupy a privileged status. Decisions that subjects make during the project period would therefore always have to be considered in relation to the project setting, which makes the evaluation more complex and demanding than it may seem at first glance.

In addition to these two objections, which relate to methodological limitations and the study design, there is another one of a legitimatory nature. It only becomes understandable when the project’s objective and present-day lived realities are considered in relation to one another. The pilot project aims to find out how participants deal with a UBI, what decisions they make, and how labor market participation actually develops. Here the question already arises as to what “positive effects” would be that matter to the project, and who decides on the standard on the basis of which these evaluations are made. If one does not want to introduce such a standard arbitrarily (e.g. improved health, higher labor market participation, or non-voluntary engagement that does not decline too sharply, etc.), then only one would remain: the one contained in lived practice itself and in the political order that is decisive for it.

For living conditions in Germany and the corresponding political order—and only these are relevant to the project—high expectations apply regarding autonomy, that is, making decisions with a claim to being justifiable and also taking responsibility for them. Autonomy is a norm. This is not only observable in simple ways in everyday life; it is inscribed in the political order—one need only think of Article 20 of the Basic Law. Autonomy—that is, the maturity of citizens—is simply assumed; it is regarded as a precondition before which everyone must justify themselves, always in relation to what their decisions mean for their individual way of life and for the community. Accordingly, the powers of the state to interfere with this autonomy are limited and, where intervention nevertheless occurs, are subject to an extraordinary duty of justification (example: the mandated restrictions of recent months). So if this autonomy is a precondition of present-day coexistence and of the political order founded upon it, what exactly is the “basic income pilot project” “testing”? Labor market participation is not an imperative that follows from the political order. For good reason, there is no forced labor, but free choice of occupation. Is the goal of the project then not to test something that has long already been in force, something that characterizes our living conditions anyway, whether we like it or not? The practical consequence of this test would then be to call into question whether things really are as they are, and whether that is “positive.” In practice, this would not only call into question whether this autonomy is in fact the foundation and norm of our coexistence, but also whether it is appropriate. In this way, the pilot project calls the present into question, expresses mistrust in the maturity of citizens, and places it at disposal depending on how the results ultimately turn out.

This objection is significant far beyond the basic income debate, because it calls democracy into question in its very foundations. This is an extremely important phenomenon in terms of diagnosing our times, and one that is worth investigating in its own right.