Business Insider

For about 15 years, Germany offered a social assistance benefit that was widely considered the opposite of basic income.

Any single, adult German resident who could not make ends meet based on their income and personal assets (or with assistance from relatives) was eligible to receive around 424 euros ($470) per month to cover food and basic necessities.

Fast Company

Thaïs Bendixen had a problem. Like many other millennials, the 25-year-old master’s student from Portugal “didn’t have any [financial] help from her parents” and had to balance the need to feed her brain with the need to put food on the table. “I knew I didn’t want to be in front of a computer—I wanted to be outside doing something to help the environment,” Bendixen says, explaining how difficult she found it to work and study at the same time.

Basic Income Earth Network

Basic income is going to be tested in Germany. The setup of the experiment will be similar to the one now ending in Finland, which means there will be an unconditional cash transfer to 250 randomly selected people among those already receiving benefits (250 others will act as the control group), and evaluate the impact in terms of labor market behavior, health and social relations.

By Kate McFarland

Inspired by the popular initiative for a basic income in Switzerland — where citizens will vote on a basic income on the 5th of June — the group Omnibus for Direct Democracy has joined forces with several basic income advocacy groups to launch a campaign for a basic income referendum in Germany.

An important difference between the two countries, however, is that Germany does not currently permit referendums at the federal level. The main goal of Omnibus for Direct Democracy is to reform the German democratic system so that citizens can introduce and vote on national referendums — as reflected in its slogan, “Wir wollen abstimmen” (“We want to vote”).