The problem with this kind of test is that the people still live in a society where cheap labor is available to the companies around them that provide them with all the goods and services that they like to purchase with those $1000 (or whatever free amount they've gotten). Germany shifted to a system that is as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine. There are some strings attached, but considerably less than in the past. You can easily live from the "Bürgergeld", but the labor market currently takes a third hit after Covid and Russia's full scale invasion on Europe: lots of companies, especially labor intensive services like bars and restaurants, have serious trouble to hire staff. The only way is to offer higher salaries – which, in turn, needs to be paid by the customers. This makes goods and services less affordable for everyone, but especially for those relying on government money...
>Germany shifted to a system that is as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine.
It is free money for everyone. Everyone obviously excluding the people who work full-time and who are paying taxes so that "everyone" can live of Bürgergeld.
>but especially for those relying on government money...
Yes, those are the real victims here. Who else could be victimized by working full time, so that other people don't have to work?
Maybe the real victims are the people who have to work full time and are suffering from the increased cost of living?
> It is free money for everyone. Everyone obviously excluding the people who work full-time and who are paying taxes so that "everyone" can live of Bürgergeld.
Oh wow, the exact thing people have been saying would happen has happened. Turn's out Quasi-UBI is a drain on tax paying citizens after all. Amazing.
German here, our country is broken beyond recognition due to 40 years of terrible political decisions independent of party or political side.
I cannot even name one thing that is not broken beyond belief. The conservative government has added the debt ceiling to our Constitution requiring a 2/3 vote to change it, thereby making investments like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US utterly impossible. However, they are needed for dozens of reasons, not just the collapsing infrastructure which will directly impact our economy.
Conservatives, Greens, Liberals and Social Democrats have all completely failed at running this country for 40+ years. Russian-supported fascists AfD are obviously not an alternative.
We are coasting on the gains, relationships and industries established before 1990. This is where our standing and wealth comes from and we are simply riding on that high until it pops.
I can go deeply into all of the troubles but Ill keep it simple: the state of the military is entirely representative of the state of ALL other sectors. That should be relatable to non-Germans. I am not exaggerating for karma, my deepest worry is the condition of the real estate / housing market. This is material for a complete shit show, it honestly scares me.
>We are coasting on the gains, relationships and industries established before 1990. This is where our standing and wealth comes from and we are simply riding on that high until it pops.
And more and more of that is either going bankrupt or is being outsourced to China. Whole sectors are step by step becoming non-competitive. Manufacturing, which has been the most important wealth generator for the lower middle class, is going away. Engineering is only relevant if you can innovate, which for many, many reason doesn't really happen. In Germany a very experienced Software developer makes a pittance compared to what you can in the US with much less experience, even before taxes.
Of course it doesn't really help that much of the population is not particularly inclined to do anything engineering/scientific/manufacturing related and actively looks down on that.
>my deepest worry is the condition of the real estate / housing market
Honestly, I am "optimistic" that multiple big manufacturers will fail before that, together with their suppliers.
Also German.
> I cannot even name one thing that is not broken beyond belief. The conservative government has added the debt ceiling to our Constitution requiring a 2/3 vote to change it
Good. You'd see a government without this restriction spend more money on pension benefits faster than you'd think possible.
> thereby making investments like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US utterly impossible
This is not true. Germany has a spending problem, not a tax income problem. Never before have we had as much taxes in the Governments pockets as we do now.
This.
> Maybe the real victims are the people who have to work full time and are suffering from the increased cost of living?
If this was a genuine concern there wouldn't be so many people skimming off the top of every nation on the planet. We're surrounded by parasites and you're picking on people running calorie deficits for some reason.
>If this was a genuine concern there wouldn't be so many people skimming off the top of every nation on the planet. We're surrounded by parasites and you're picking on people running calorie deficits for some reason.
Wrong. The only way to go hungry here in Germany is by choice.
The people "skimming off the top" are not the ones paying millions upon millions in taxes. It is those who are to lazy to work, because they and their family get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income. If you are able, but not working in some capacity, you are the leech and millionaires are paying for your leeching.
> because they and their family get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income
This means it’s not UBI, and that’s kind of the whole point here. With UBI this welfare cliff wouldn’t exist; if you work, you still raise your income. That means, unlike the current German system, UBI still incentivises people to work to increase their income/wealth.
Of course actively disincentivising people to work will cause them to not work. That’s just rational behaviour, you cannot blame anyone for that.
>get enough Bürgergeld, that actually working would lower their income.
This very rarely ever happens by accident. It's a useful policy hack for people "who pay millions in taxes" because it disincentivizes their workers from pushing for a pay raise.
This way they can leech more of the surplus value of their labor.
This is genuinely insane. No, millionaires want people to work, because more people working depresses wages and more people working allows growing the economy.
If people don't want to work, they have to pay the leeches and they have to pay more to get people willing to work. Your economics are insane.
>It's a useful policy hack for people "who pay millions in taxes" because it disincentivizes their workers from pushing for a pay raise.
No, it incentivizes them, because there are fewer people working, meaning the supply of labor goes down. At a constant demand that means the price for labor goes up. Literally economics 101.
>This is genuinely insane. No, millionaires want people to work
These people do work - generally unofficial odd jobs under the table for shitty wages.
Have you never met any of these "leeches" taking benefits?
I meet them every day of my life.
>These people do work - generally unofficial odd jobs under the table for shitty wages.
Usually dealing drugs.
Evidently not.
I've read plenty about how every working family struggling on benefits is a crack dealer too, written in media that is exclusively owned by the economic leeches who contribute little to no economic value but "who pay millions in taxes" on their unearned income:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260633/Drug-dealer...
The propaganda that underpins your belief system was designed to foster exactly your kind of resentment against the underclass.
This is a conspiracy theory. There is a labor shortage already, so the people “who pay millions in taxes” would be able to earn much more money if they could find more motivated workers.
>> Who else could be victimized by working full time, so that other people don't have to work?
As when employees work full time so that shareholders can be given dividends? Part of me would rather a cut of wages go to support thousands of people on welfare who "don't have to work" rather than that cut go to a handful of billionaires who also "don't have to work". Our economy already supports an array of non-working people (retirees, disabled people, passive shareholders). So I'm not going to get hung up on the principal. We broke that glass long ago.
Your sarcasm is out of place. I criticise the scheme because it’s not sustainable, not even for those that get the handouts. It’s not even solving the supposed problem. This is important with regard to the posted article, because that effect cannot be observed on small scale experiments that do not restrict labor supply on a societal scale.
That is the problem with these programs. You will never get full buy in from the population unless EVERYONE benefits from it. Just look at social security and Medicare if you go to cut that it is political suicide.
Forced large scale redistribution is just theft, honestly. The value proposition of heavy taxing is no longer met, people here (in Germany) no longer receive fair benefits for their taxes. Infrastructure is failing.
There is no system where everyone benefits from redistribution.
It is literally impossible to imagine a system where everyone benefits, unless you have a free energy machine of course.
Society and economies aren’t zero-sum games. It usually costs less to prevent someone from robbing you by giving them some welfare money - boom, value created out of nothing and everyone is better off ;-)
While there are areas where the "Fachkräftemangel" (lack of skilled laborers) is actually real, the problem for gastronomy is the minimum wage, which is ~12 Euros. Why choose being a service worker or part of the kitchen brigade in (especially small) gastronomy (where, often, all you get is only slightly above minimum wage), if there are other, easier choices which pay basically the same?
As someone who was service staff as a student, I completely understand that, to be honest. It doesn't help that many restaurants just fired their whole service staff during COVID, even though there are other instruments like "Kurzarbeit" (where the state gives you welfare, and you temporarily only work few hours or not at all, if no work is available at your place of labor) - obviously people find new jobs in this case and aren't available anymore.
> Why choose being a service worker in gastronomy
The tipping money often exceeds the wage, from what I hear.
Is this true in Germany? As an American, I was always of the impression that in continental Europe, tips were as a rule a much smaller part of compensation.
Not as extreme as in the US, but it's still true. My brother nearly outearned me during our studies, I was a working part time student and he worked tables on the Weekend.
> as as close to a basic income as you can currently imagine.
More like as far as I can imagine.
Basic Income has to be provided to everyone, not just the ones who don't have a job. That's the whole point. It's not that the amount must be sufficient to live off of, that can be worked out later, but it has to start with everyone on board and that's what makes it "Basic".
isn't that just inflation with extra steps?
The point is everyone would have contributed evenly to this inflation if you look at it from that angle.
depends how much you claw back in taxes for higher earners
That's something that most programs don't even try to explain, and something ive wondered about - how does the money affect competition, both for goods/services and labor?
If you're affecting very small percentages of the population, the impacts seem minor. We've seen this with analysis on raising minimum wage to about $10/hr. Most people make over that amount (or work in excluded roles), so the impact is small. Raise it too much too quickly, and some industries experience issues due to costs passed on in their products/services, and inflation can become detrimental to the people at the bottom.
I wonder how this sort of thing will work out with something on a nearly universal scale - Social Security. To keep up with inflation, we need higher payouts. To keep the program solved, we need more revenue. This can be achieved with more workers, but relies on ever expanding population to cover the prior generation. Or it can be achieved with higher earning workers, which generally requires higher prices which potentially drives inflation, or though higher consumption (not very competitive on the global market due to cost of living, so not likely). Or we can raise the payroll taxes to cover the payouts.
Anything besides the higher output/consumption is likely to result in higher costs to consumers and drive inflation. More money being in more people's pockets also means more competition for constrained resources, also driving inflation.
UBI creates inflation. I think anyone trying to deny that amounts to denying it because they really want UBI, and so they need it to not have that bad effect, but it does. You can't pour money into an economy without a productivity offset without inflating it.
The theory is that productivity increases will in fact offset it. One way to prevent an increase in money causing inflation is to correspondingly increase the value generated by the economy. Some economic theories, including the current dominant mainstream one, would suggest that if you have that sort of productivity increase you need to increase the money supply to avoid negative impacts brought on by deflation.
One of my several major problems with the idea is I see almost no one trying to figure out how to actually bind the productivity increases together with UBI. Even if I stipulate for the sake of argument a perfectly functioning UBI system working exactly as the advocates propose, as gracious as I can possibly be, it is still a fragile system. Droughts, wars, asteroid strikes, volcanos, bad crop years, supply chain disruptions, normal economic variations including recessions, these things all happen. The productivity excess will shrink at times, but, no politician under any political governing scheme could reduce the payouts, and after long enough on UBI, the hypothetical paradise it produces full of wonderful artists and musicians and programmers creating text editors rather than CRUD apps and people just enjoying life also produces an economy full of people who can't help get the economy back on its feet when there is a disruption... but they're still there with their hands out.
>no one trying to figure out how to actually bind the productivity increases together with UBI
Because we not only figured that out, but already implemented this several times in practice. Productivity decreasing until there is nothing to eat, and then people dies from starvation (for some reasons they can't live without food)
I'll be honest. You had me in the first half, but then: "... the hypothetical paradise it produces full of wonderful artists and musicians and programmers creating text editors rather than CRUD apps ..."
Who willingly endeavors to write text editors in 2024 when acme(4) exists?
I jest. More seriously though, if the measure of one's value to society is in their ability to crank out CRUD apps, I'm appalled. I want more dishwashers, more plumbers, more framers, more joiners, more cooks, more babysitters, more stonemasons, and the only way any of that kind of hard labor is sustainable is if there's a cushion to fall back on to recuperate. Bodies break. They break more catastrophically when the damage is continued and sustained over time.
I want my girlfriend to feel free to take on domestic work full-time with the knowledge that, no matter what, she'll be paid for it and that her domestic labor contributions, as informal as they are, are valued monetarily without my having to make up the balance. Likewise, I want that there in case I myself want to take up those domestic responsibilities for a while.
These are two cohorts that literally cement the foundation of society, let alone our trade system, not a cavalcade of keyboard cowboys wrangling Ruby on Rails. I want UBI for them because, without them, the entire project literally crumbles.
The UBI problem, and the problem in your post, is you're engineering starting from what you want, and then assuming that there must be a solution to get there.
You have to start with what you have and build from there.
This is a subtle point and it may take some meditation and thought, possibly ever over some months or years, to understand what I mean. But if you are an engineer, life will hand you opportunities to see what I mean. You can't write down a list of requirements, then assume that exact solution exists, and then burn for it full speed. You must always start with what you actually have and the options you actually have.
The thing that makes perfect sense to me, but you would consider ironic, is that while you may accuse me of this and that, lack of imagination, lack of dreaming, lack of belief, whatever, my way builds better worlds and your way builds failures. I don't follow this path because I don't also see the temptation to build dreamscapes and live in them, I follow this path because it's the one that works.
I am, in fact, not an engineer; I trained to be an actuary. (Though, I guess if one squints enough, the operations research electives look like industrial and systems engineering.)
I consider UBI less an engineering exercise with requirements that feed into the engineering method and more one of ratemaking and claim severity against an entire trade system. My only goal is to put a dollar amount on a loss event (and get some quantification of how many loss events occur over time while we're not looking). What anyone does with that is up to them.
Use of the second person was certainly a choice.
> an economy full of people who can't help get the economy back on its feet
Because they're infantile, used to picnicking and playing their guitars, and devoid of industrial skills like lathe operating or CRUD app development?
> You can't pour money into an economy without a productivity offset without inflating it.
Isn't this even more egregious in the case of bank bailouts? Shouldn't that money have evaporated?
>how does the money affect competition, both for goods/services and labor?
We have the entire 20th century, when many countries tried exactly that. Production is decreasing, labor participation decreasing, good availability decreasing. Mass famine, millions of deaths from starvation. Governments have to decree force labor to overcome famine and totalitarian oppression to avoid revolutions and protect the progressive achievements of general welfare. Last part centralizes authority even more and gives the government tools to remain in power no matter what.
>Or we can raise the payroll taxes to cover the payouts.
This is exactly where the spiral of death begins. Hieger taxation (when there is welfare) - less work incentives - fewer workers - less goods availability - you need bigger welfare share, so even hieger taxes. And so on until people have literally nothing to eat. Not once or twice, always.
That's not exactly correct. The bürgergeld was planned to be a kind of basic income, but that part of it was axed. The conditions that apply move it to exactly the same social security money that existed before.
There is also statistically no existing move from work to existence supported by bürgergeld. It's just propaganda when that's claimed.
This.
Your argument ignores the fact that people do not "need" to demand a full market wage if they already get UBI. Indeed, it is often claimed that state subsidies to the poor are in effect subsidies to their employers.
The situation exists where any low income person gets subsidies from the state, e.g. through cheaper housing, free schools and healthcare, etc. People are still incentivized to work even when they get these subsidies. UBI merely extends such subsidies to include food and other daily expenses.
This is the best critique of UBI I've ever seen (which is a little sad). I don't remember ever reading anything about the second-order effects before.
That's probably because the second order effects of UBI are obvious to anyone that's ever had a job. So you have the people that know the obvious, and the people that want to hide the obvious from the few that don't get it.
The covid handouts and raised unemployment benefits gave a sneak peak to anyone else that was blind.
Even things on the user market were on shirt supply and with high prices. In California the effective unemployment rate was something like $23+.. why would anyone sell their old lawn mower for $50 if you're getting $4000 to stay home? Why work painting houses for $4k a month when you got $4k to sit home. Magically everything cost double or more instantly... I wonder why.
It isn't a very good critique, as it assumes that the only reason people work is to avoid starvation.
People will work very hard to increase their income levels above that required solely for basic needs (i.e. UBI levels), see pretty much every non-minimum wage employee.
I think why people work at the jobs they do is a lot more complicated than that.
Many people do work to avoid starvation PLUS maintain whatever level of standards they've become comfortable with.
But the reason IMO people work non basic jobs is because if they are already forced to work their entire lives to avoid starvation, they might as well optimize. If I have to commute, and maintain a car, and be there for 40+ hours a week, I might as well invest in getting the most out of that as possible.
But once people have enough money to maintain their comfortable lifestyle for the rest of their life, many do retire.
Agreed. Such variable motivations for work and money apply to those on low incomes as much as they apply to those on high incomes.
There's no a-priori reason why one would expect those who receive UBI to be work-shy.
It makes you work shy because unless you have a high paying job, it doesn't make sense to work.
$3k with tons of free time all week.
Or add working for $3k extra money by giving up all your free time? Not worth it.
Unless of course apartments become $5k a month since that's about the money that a person on UBI plus a bad job has..
Why does that logic not apply to those on higher incomes?
Have a job with a free-market rate of $100/hr? Why not work for only 30 hrs a week?
Also, UBI levels are never proposed at $3k/week ($150k/yr), but rather at about $250/wk ($13k/yr), or only 2-3 hours of work per week for the $100/hr guy.
The 3k was per month... Just using the common phrase of working all week with only weekends off to show the comparison.
> I don't remember ever reading anything about the second-order effects before.
That's because it's BS.
I know you really want to believe it, but this is bs: look at inflation statistics in Europe and you'll see that the effect you're imaging doesn't exist. There's no excess inflation in Germany compared to everywhere else in the EU.
Also Bürgergeld is $500 a month for an adult, which is very far from "You can easily live from the Bürgergeld". Survive maybe but definitely not "easily live".
The labor market issues in Germany like in most Europe have a demographic origin, when there's not enough young people you cannot hire them.
> Also Bürgergeld is $500 a month for an adult, which is very far from "You can easily live from the Bürgergeld". Survive maybe but definitely not "easily live".
You're leaving out a ton of information there. The 500 Euros is after everything else has been paid for. There's also lots of benefits like Kindergeld, money for each child you have.
Money which itself barely covers the cost that having kids puts on you…
People living out of it are living in absolute misery, well under the poverty line.
False. They are not living in "absolute misery". The highest germany court has established this in the past. German welfare is among the highest in the world. I also know this personally, I have lived on the past (even more strict) alternative to "Bürgergeld" for the first 18 years of my life.
German welfare guarantees you food, an apartment for you and your children, public schooling, funding for school projects and even includes money for social gatherings.
To portray this as "absolute misery" is false to the point of being dishonest and you're being unfair to billions of people living in pitiful states of poverty.
I've personally given benefits to these people, and I can assure you that you live in a fiction built for you by propaganda on TV.
Are these people better than those in Gaza? Sure but their life is still insanely hard.
You said you lived this way for the first 18 years of your life, then ask your parents how much sacrifices they made so you can feel this comfortable. If you never skipped meal because you could not afford food, be sure that your parents were and just hid it from you out of dignity.
> Are these people better than those in Gaza? Sure but their life is still insanely hard.
They are better off than 95-99%% of the world's population. Put this into perspective. I've seen incredible poverty in this world. Our people are largely ungrateful and have lost the point entirely.
> You said you lived this way for the first 18 years of your life, then ask your parents how much sacrifices they made so you can feel this comfortable
You don't know my situation. There were little sacrifices to be had. I also never said it was always comfortable. But it was dignified and we had everything we needed. There was not a single day where we had to skip meals, and I remember filling out the forms for school trips myself. To live always comfortable is not the point of welfare.
> I've personally given benefits to these people, and I can assure you that you live in a fiction built for you by propaganda on TV.
Seeing as you're swatting away my opinions and personal experience as propaganda, I don't think there is any way to get a fruitful discussion out of this. I don't think we should lower welfare benefits. I just think we're being nationally out of touch with reality.
> They are better off than 95-99%% of the world's population
Who themselves are miles ahead the entirely of work population that ever lived on this planet before XXth century, but that doesn't make their life any better, does it?
> Our people are largely ungrateful and have lost the point entirely.
You aren't entitled any gratitude from people, especially not on the basis that there lives is being made a bit less miserable because of policies you oppose. Maybe I would deserve it slightly more, because at least I'm voting in favor of these policies, but I don't think anyone owes me gratitude whatsoever.
> To live always comfortable is not the point of welfare.
I'm not arguing the opposite, but you did insist that these people lived comfortably. This is obviously BS and I'm glad to see you're retracting it now.
> Seeing as you're swatting away my opinions and personal experience as propaganda, I don't think there is any way to get a fruitful discussion out of this. I don't think we should lower welfare benefits. I just think we're being nationally out of touch with reality.
Whatever your opinions (which BTW are as valid as mine, by definition of being opinions), you started this conversation with factual lies (which, on the opposite, isn't OK) about people “easily living” on welfare. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you did not make this lie on purpose by yourself, and given that this is a recurrent trope of right wing politicians on TV, it's fair to assume that's where it came from.
> Who themselves are miles ahead the entirely of work population that ever lived on this planet before XXth century, but that doesn't make their life any better, does it?
Eh. I‘d argue the average dirt poor Indian right now isn‘t far off from your 1800‘s Chinese rice farmer.
> You aren't entitled any gratitude from people, especially not on the basis that there lives is being made a bit less miserable because of policies you oppose.
This is untrue and I‘m not sure where you’ve made this observation. I wholly support these policies for German people. I have voted for a lot of them in the past and I‘m not a conservative. I love my country and the people in it and I voted progressive in every election I could.
Which is why I‘m getting angry when people spread straight lies that our people on welfare here in my country regularly go without food or live in awful states of disarray and poverty. We provide so much to people and I‘m proud of it. But I‘m also realistic in the way that we can‘t provide this level of welfare to just any outsider, and that welfare is not supposed to provide a life of leisure activity.
> I'm not arguing the opposite, but you did insist that these people lived comfortably. This is obviously BS and I'm glad to see you're retracting it now.
Nowhere in this thread did I state such a thing. I merely said they and their children their basic needs met, which is true. I‘m sitting in my office right now while my partner - an elementary school teacher - fills out forms for the kids in her class with parents on welfare, for them to be provided with any needed materials and money for overnight school trips. I love this. This is good. I didn’t have the privilege when I was a child. How are these people struggling exactly? They live in Munich, the most expensive city here, in one of the most expensive parts of the city, on welfare.
> , you started this conversation with factual lies (which, on the opposite, isn't OK) about people “easily living” on welfare.
Prove where I said anything about easy living. Quote me. It‘s you who is lying and I‘m getting annoyed by this conversation.
> I give you the benefit of the doubt that you did not make this lie on purpose by yourself, and given that this is a recurrent trope of right wing politicians on TV, it's fair to assume that's where it came from.
Nice resort to ad hominems. Note that I have spared you these baseless attacks. I would have expected you to keep this standard up as well. How disappointing. Maybe consider that differing opinions are not always propaganda you might read in the Bild, but sometimes come from people‘s real experiences.
I came out of this system and fought my way out of it. You‘re denying me not only these anecdotes but you and other posters in this thread also argue against information that can be easily found on our official webpages for welfare, all because you assume I‘m some kind of far right idiot. I‘m a bit sad for you honestly.
> Eh. I‘d argue the average dirt poor Indian right now isn‘t far off from your 1800‘s Chinese rice farmer.
Look at life expectancy and infant death, it's night and day. People really tend to underestimate how world changing antibiotics and vaccines really are. And most of those “dirt poor Indians” have mobile phones too!
> How are these people struggling exactly?
You really need to build up empathy and open your eyes to the world, look at them, listen to their stories and you'll hear the struggle. Here are a few examples from the top of my mind: the constant fear of being sanctioned because they did something deemed “wrong” by the administration, is one easy example. The contradictory requirements they need to meet. The struggle to get those benefits in the first place (try interacting with the administration when you're not fully literate, or barely speak German). The lack of any financial mattress in case of trouble, which makes even minor issues critical (an example which happened recently to someone I know: you need to comply with rules in order to get your benefits, but one day your old car break and you cannot afford to repair it, but you also cannot comply anymore without it and risk losing money). It's about having no food left in the fridge 3 days before you get your benefits and cannot buy new before it comes in. Everyone has their story, and they are depressing. But to accept that those struggles are real, you need to make the effort of looking at it.
> Prove where I said anything about easy living. Quote me. It‘s you who is lying and I‘m getting annoyed by this conversation.
I've explained that in another comment: I just mix you up with another user whom I was responding to when you replied and took his side, so I mistakenly assumed you where the original guy.
> Maybe consider that differing opinions are not always propaganda you might read in the Bild, but sometimes come from people‘s real experiences.
You are the one asking “how are those people struggling?”, it's easy to assume people don't struggle when it's not directly visible. You are the one arguing that something which exists (poor people being poor and having constant difficulties) doesn't in fact exists. In a way you are telling me that the people I've witnessed, don't exist!
So yeah I blame propaganda because the reasonable reaction to someone telling you “this thing exist” isn't to say “no it doesn't exist”. The line of reasoning “I've never seen that so it must not exist” is not how the human brain works in general. Even flat-eathers don't believe the earth is flat because they've never seen it round, they do believe that because of a socialization process: other people told them it was false, and so they started questioning it and liked the idea.
> all because you assume I‘m some kind of far right idiot. I‘m a bit sad for you honestly.
I never mentioned anything about you being far right. You see, you too are being confused between different HN users;)
> You really need to build up empathy and open your eyes to the world, look at them, listen to their stories and you'll hear the struggle
I do and I have empathy. Everyone has their own struggles. I see no reason why welfare should reduce struggle to zero.
> the constant fear of being sanctioned because they did something deemed “wrong” by the administration, is one easy example.
Bürgergeld was introduced to deal with these restrictions and even if it's now appended form is still less restrictive than Hartz IV ever was.
> The contradictory requirements they need to meet.
I'm afraid this is just German inefficiency and beurocracy in disguise.
> you need to comply with rules in order to get your benefits, but one day your old car break and you cannot afford to repair it, but you also cannot comply anymore without it and risk losing money
I would be very interested in these rules, because last time I googled, the Arbeitsamt supplies a car if you need it with up to 15k Eur in value.
> It's about having no food left in the fridge 3 days before you get your benefits and cannot buy new before it comes in.
Again, we have food and soup kitchens. I've been there myself. You just have to get over your internal self inflicted shame. There is nothing to be ashamed of when you're going there and the staff there were nothing but friendly, if a little stressed last time I went.
> Everyone has their story, and they are depressing. But to accept that those struggles are real, you need to make the effort of looking at it.
I know those struggles are real. But more often enough, we do have ways to deal with them.
> You are the one asking “how are those people struggling?”, it's easy to assume people don't struggle when it's not directly visible.
As I see it, most of those struggles are either self inflicted due to shame or rise from missing knowledge on how to navigate the system when you're in need.
> In a way you are telling me that the people I've witnessed, don't exist!
They certainly do exist. But there are solutions for almost every one of their problems. You just have to work together with the people at the Arbeitsamt, which many don't.
No one has to go hungry or cold in Germany and I stand by this firmly.
> Bürgergeld was introduced to deal with these restrictions and even if it's now appended form is still less restrictive than Hartz IV ever was.
How is that supposed to go in favor of your argument?
> I'm afraid this is just German inefficiency and beurocracy in disguise.
It is, but it's not just Germany. I know Germans love to complain about their bureaucracy like they love to complain about Deutsche Bahn, but it just shows their lack of foreign experience…
> Again, we have food and soup kitchens.
I address that in the other thread: only if you're lucky to have one nearby.
> I know those struggles are real.
You suggested the opposite in the previous comment so which is it?
> As I see it, most of those struggles are either self inflicted due to shame or
“Lazy poor people who can't just hire a layer like anyone else”
> No one has to go hungry or cold in Germany and I stand by this firmly.
“They just happen to chose to go hungry or cold because they are dumb”
That's just not true. Bürgergeld does not cover real rent costs for example. There is ceiling that is unreachably low. Heating is also not included,so in no way is everything else covered.
To others: This thread is full of propaganda from the neoliberal and extreme right like this. Don't believe a single bit, they do not describe the state of the country nor how the policies work. It is a common wave of propaganda though and maybe interesting from that side.
Your statements are not true. Heating is fully covered and Bürgergeld pays way more for rent than the average student can afford. Maybe it’s different in your city, but in mine, Jobcenter is very generous when it comes to paying rent.
It's just not. Heating is only covered when its costs are deemed to be reasonable. It's just not fully covered by default. It's nice when they cover it for you without problems, but it's not a given. Plus there are limits, like not covering parts of the costs if your apartment is deemed too big.
I could also have picked electricity costs as a different cost of living that is not covered at all.
I have no idea why the poster above is outright lying. You can disprove their claims in a minute by looking at the official page of the Arbeitsamt.
> That's just not true. Bürgergeld does not cover real rent costs for example.
Yep. That's where "Wohngeld" comes in.
> This thread is full of propaganda from the neoliberal and extreme right like this
This is not true. I live in Germany. I have family members in the system on both sides. I read news from all isles.
Fact is, our social welfare state is unmatched compared to any other country. Nowhere else will you get welfare benefits this high. Our welfare benefits are so high, the sudden drop in benefits reduces benefits from earning more money by insane margins. There is a good calculation example here [1]
[1]: https://x.com/sozi_simon/status/1737361321186701336
BTW, you can't get bürgergeld and Wohngeld at the same time, so that's already completely wrong. See https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/arbeitslos-arbeit-finden/buerg... :
Wenn Sie Bürgergeld erhalten, haben Sie keinen Anspruch auf Wohngeld. Allerdings ist Wohngeld eine vorrangige Leistung. Wenn Sie dadurch Ihre Hilfebedürftigkeit beseitigen oder vermeiden können, können Sie einen Wohngeldantrag stellen (ab dem 1. Juli 2023 sind Sie verpflichtet, einen Wohngeldantrag zu stellen).
For a more full picture have a look at https://www.ifo.de/publikationen/2024/aufsatz-zeitschrift/lo... (though the ifo is not always trustworthy). There exist specific scenarios where there is not enough money remaining when you pick up work with a better salary. Even I know scenarios like that, for example when getting unemployment benefits, all money earned at the side is lost, which is just stupid if you wanted people to slide into work (through being self-employed for example). That should be a percentage, so that you have more at the end when completing a freelance project for example, instead of having worked for nothing.
What makes it rightwing propaganda is taking these cases and claiming that it would explain why people don't want to work anymore - which is not true, neither the connection nor that people don't want to work. And to combine it with the statement that the welfare benefits are high, when they are not - the problem, if there is one, is that earned money reduces the benefits 100%, instead of on a sliding scale. It's not the amount, as in 99% of scenarios being on state welfare completely sucks in Germany, it's the scenario of not having enough money for food at the end of the month, being scared to heat in the winter and each unforeseen bill a mayor crisis.
Also, it is also not okay to not mention that bürgergeld is still combined with sanctions. If not taking up (usual shitty ) work it can be lost, or missing a summoning, etc. Being in that system is thus highly stressful. Those sanctions were supposed to go away, instead they were made harder. Thanks SPD.
If these sanctions did stay in place… then why is chancellor Scholz (SPD) currently rallying to reintroduce them?[0] of course, he’s a populist, but that doesn’t make your statement true.
[0] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/politik/scholz-so...
He does not? The article is saying the contrary:
Gegen Bezieher, die sich immer wieder weigerten, Jobs anzunehmen, habe die Regierung zudem bereits härtere Sanktionen möglich gemacht.
> What makes it rightwing propaganda is taking these cases and claiming that it would explain why people don't want to work anymore
I still don't agree it's right wing propaganda. Bürgergeld is just one part of a larger picture of why people don't want to work anymore. The reality is that social welfare in its entirety is too close to what you can earn with low skilled work, wages are too low and benefits are too high and cut off too suddenly.
> It's not the amount, as in 99% of scenarios being on state welfare completely sucks in Germany
Again, I can not confirm. I have lived on state welfare (Hartz IV) for my entire life before moving out of my parents.
> it's the scenario of not having enough money for food at the end of the month, being scared to heat in the winter and each unforeseen bill a mayor crisis.
This is not true in my experience. I don't know where you're getting this information from. Heating costs were always covered unless you heat like a maniac and unforseen bills are not happening. Where should they? Your apartment and car fixing costs are covered. You can read more about this here: [1]
> Also, it is also not okay to not mention that bürgergeld is still combined with sanctions. If not taking up (usual shitty ) work it can be lost, or missing a summoning, etc. Being in that system is thus highly stressful. Those sanctions were supposed to go away, instead they were made harder. Thanks SPD.
Why shouldn't they take up shitty work? It's not undignified. My mother stocked shelves for Aldi. She worked gas stations. She did community work. She couldn't hold a job for long. It's hard work and that's okay. You don't have the right to dodge shitty work just because you don't think it's gratifying. It's also not as stressful as you make it out to be. You have to remember, you're still getting so much stuff for free there are millions of people who would die for that chance. A little stress still makes it worth it.
Yes, you need to be smart with money. That's okay. Welfare should not make for a live of comfortable spending. But people don't live in a state of desolation. The point of welfare is to enable people who can't work to live a dignified live. Not a comfortable one. We're just so out of touch in Germany, people on our welfare system can't see their incredible privilege.
[1]: https://www.inside-digital.de/news/buergergeld-jobcenter-bez....
> This is not true in my experience. I don't know where you're getting this information from. Heating costs were always covered unless you heat like a maniac and unforseen bills are not happening. Where should they? Your apartment and car fixing costs are covered. You can read more about this here: [1]
That does not fit together at all. The article is covering a legal decision from 2020 where one woman forced the jobcenter to cover car repair costs. So before, it was not covered. So you just did not have a childhood in the system where stuff like this was covered.
> Why shouldn't they take up shitty work? It's not undignified.
That's not the point. The claim above was that you can comfortable live on Bürgergeld without having to work. Which you usually can't, since it would be taken away (or at least significantly reduced) if you tried that.
> The reality is that social welfare in its entirety is too close to what you can earn with low skilled work
So which other social welfare systems than Bürgergeld are you aiming at here?
> That does not fit together at all. The article is covering a legal decision from 2020 where one woman forced the jobcenter to cover car repair costs. So before, it was not covered. So you just did not have a childhood in the system where stuff like this was covered.
I did, but we did not experience this specific case. I lived in a small town and the Government paid for my public transport costs. They do provide a car as well if you need it for work or for educational purposes. They also pay for transport if you're sick and need to see a doctor. Of course, if you're on welfare with a car without a need for a car, they won't cover anything, which is fair.
> That's not the point. The claim above was that you can comfortable live on Bürgergeld without having to work. Which you usually can't, since it would be taken away (or at least significantly reduced) if you tried that.
I've not said this once.
> So which other social welfare systems than Bürgergeld are you aiming at here?
I'm asking again, are you even German? There are lots of other opportunities which we do provide. We pay for your Apartment with Wohngeld, even if you do work and don't earn enough. We pay for your healthcare costs. We pay for school supplies, trips and education costs for children. In my city, there are a lot of subsidised offers like free access to public pools. You have access to free TV and internet if you're on welfare. You can get a free social carer who will manage your expenses, if you yourself are not able.
I am not trying to be rude, but you're again discussing from a point of severe misinformation and you're lacking crucial knowledge about how our system works. You've been corrected multiple times in this thread for spreading misinformation, like heating costs not being covered by the government.
It's the other way around. You seem to take your information from the AFD or FDP bubble and are thus thoroughly misinformed in how the system works and what effect it has on the people under it. I did not react to your question for my nationality as it's ad hominem. Be assured that I know german politics and social systems perfectly well.
You ignore which limits and obligations are placed under the bürgergeld system, and how stiffling the bureaucracy is. For example, yes, Schuldbedarf is covered, but only up to an amount. Depending on the school that can be not enough, and then be a big problem. You also implied (and even said directly) that aids like Wohngeld and Bürgergeld can be combined, which is wrong.
> They do provide a car as well if you need it for work or for educational purposes
I just linked you to an article showing that they did not.
>> That's not the point. The claim above was that you can comfortable live on Bürgergeld without having to work. Which you usually can't, since it would be taken away (or at least significantly reduced) if you tried that.
> I've not said this once.
It is impossible to read your comments without seeing that this is what you want to say. You also directly agreed with comments saying the same. I quoted you already on that.
> Fact is, our social welfare state is unmatched compared to any other country. Nowhere else will you get welfare benefits this high. Our welfare benefits are so high, the sudden drop in benefits reduces benefits from earning more money by insane margins.
It's very funny, because people with the same political opinions as you in my country are absolutely positive that this is the case for my country instead (France).
And in practice they are pretty similar (as are many European systems unsurprisingly, we all draw inspiration on each other) and as someone who knows the French social system fairly well I can assure you that the trope you hear from right wing politicians on TV is nothing but lies.
Both can be right in their own way. I'm not saying we should get rid of our welfare. I'm just saying our people are missing the point. It's incredible privilege to live here. You think they would get the same welfare in the US, in China, Ghana or Russia? Think again. They should be grateful is what I'm saying.
No that's not what you're saying, you're saying that they live easily and have no incentive to work, which I'm arguing against. You also said this lack of incentive to work is causing inflation, which I'm also arguing against.
Now I agree with you that even though their live is still tough, they are still very lucky to live in Germany as opposed to many other places on earth.
But that wasn't the topic and you moved the goalpost.
> No that's not what you're saying, you're saying that they live easily and have no incentive to work
Well you‘re free to quote me on that. I haven‘t been saying this at all.
> which I'm arguing against.
No, you’re arguing for falsehoods. Posters here are stating that things that are covered aren‘t and that people on Bürgergeld live in abhorrent poverty, which is demonstrably untrue.
> You also said this lack of incentive to work is causing inflation, which I'm also arguing against.
I haven‘t. Again, please do quote me.
> But that wasn't the topic and you moved the goalpost.
No, the topic was that you (among others) think people on Bürgergeld starve, are in dire need of heating and live in depressed states for lack of funding. These are lies. You‘re lying. I’ve no idea why.
> Well you‘re free to quote me on that.
You're right I mistook you and nkmnz from whom you defended the original argument.
> and that people on Bürgergeld live in abhorrent poverty, which is demonstrably untrue.
It's only untrue if you define “abhorrent” as worse as everywhere. But that's not a good criteria because then the entirety of the world population today is affluent by even 1800 standards, and most European people in 1800 were themselves in a very good situation compared to Paleolithic humans. So of course people can survive with much less but that doesn't mean these people are suffering. It's as saying to someone with a missing foot that he's OK since others have lost both legs.
People living on social welfare are definitely struggling and only ascetic people would put themselves voluntarily under such a standard of living. And evidently pretty much anyone claiming it's not a harsh life isn't willing to live with so little.
> think people on Bürgergeld starve, are in dire need of heating and live in depressed states for lack of funding.
Skipping meal is routine, and mental health issues are indeed a problem for those people. You are the one lying to yourself.
> It's only untrue if you define “abhorrent” as worse as everywhere
> So of course people can survive with much less but that doesn't mean these people are suffering.
I‘d argue that as long as you‘re surviving entirely on someone else‘s money without being forced to work, you can argue for my point. Think about this: Never before in history did you have the chance to rely entirely upon the effort of others for your basic human needs. In almost no other country on earth can you survive with most of your needs met just because you happen to live there, even if you‘re not born there. This is insane privilege.
> And evidently pretty much anyone claiming it's not a harsh life isn't willing to live with so little
Nope, sorry. You‘re saying this from a privileged western perspective.
I‘m not comparing humans of the past, I‘m comparing it with the huge majority of people living on earth, right now. A person living on German welfare is so far removed from the average poor Afghan farmer, people in Favelas living in poverty , Ethiopians living under warlord rule or even the average poor person in the US they might as well be royalty. And again, welfare isn‘t supposed to provide an entirely struggle free life. It‘s supposed to have you meet your basic human needs. We give our people so much more than that. Public schooling, free access to public pools, additional housing money in cities, free internet for people on welfare, and a car. It’s delusional if one thinks that‘s still not enough.
Skipping meals is not routine, that‘s untrue as well. We have soup kitchens here. I’ve been there myself as a poor student.
> Think about this: Never before in history did you have the chance to rely entirely upon the effort of others for your basic human needs. In almost no other country on earth can you survive with most of your needs met just because you happen to live there, even if you‘re not born there. This is insane privilege.
Let's flip it upside down: never before[1] in history could you be bared from earning your food from your own work, and same for housing. That's the entire reason why people need welfare: there's no berries or roots to harvest, no game to hunt, no fields to farm, no vacant lot to build your house on with the help of your family and friends. All of this is behind the control of the gatekeepers who own the means of subsistence. The modern world is a prison in that regard.
> Nope, sorry. You‘re saying this from a privileged western perspective.
No, you misread me: barely nobody with your or my standard of living would voluntarily adopt this lifestyle. You act as if the ability not to work was a luxury that made all this worthwhile, but the truth is almost nobody ever voluntarily leave the wage-slavery state to take advantage of this luxury. Why that in your opinion?
> I‘m not comparing humans of the past, I‘m comparing it with the huge majority of people living on earth, right now. A person living on German welfare is so far removed from the average poor Afghan farmer, people in Favelas living in poverty , Ethiopians living under warlord rule or even the average poor person in the US they might as well be royalty
As I said in another thread, you cannot compare struggle between regions of the world or time periods, because all the poor people in the world today have access to things even royalty couldn't dream about. Infant death in Afghanistan (45/1000) is comparable to the level in Germany in the 50s and is roughly a tens of European infant mortality until the beginning of 19th century. Even in royal families, child death were consistently a terrible problem for millennia. And that's a problem that's almost non-existent in today Afghanistan. Same for food, as famine as disappeared almost everywhere in the world and people in Favelas have access to food in a diversity and quality (both in taste and in food safety) that would make aristocrats from the past in awe. Does that mean that Afghan farmers and people in Favelas are not struggling by your definition?
> Skipping meals is not routine, that‘s untrue as well. We have soup kitchens here. I’ve been there myself as a poor student.
Please read the massive literature about how many people refuse to go there even when it's close to their home (it's not always, especially in suburban or rural places) because they're “worth more than this”.
> It‘s supposed to have you meet your basic human needs. We give our people so much more than that. Public schooling, free access to public pools, additional housing money in cities, free internet for people on welfare, and a car.
You fail to realize how almost all of these (that is, everything except access to public pools) can be basic human needs in modern societies: schools are a no-brainer of course and I really don't understand how you can put it in your list, but so is housing. Cars and internet connection are only necessities because we shaped the world around it, but here's the world we live in: internet is basically mandatory for many government-related stuff and so are cars when you don't live in cities. Locking people out of the normal world isn't a rational move no matter how “morally good” it sounds. (Also, since I can't find it easily on the web, does welfare in Germany genuinely provide access to a car? That sounds really clever actually, because the lack of mobility is a huge blocker for people to get back to the job market once they've lost access to a car here in France, and we are subsidizing people who are practically stuck without opportunity to get a job which is a terrible policy).
[1] at least not before the “enclosure movement” in Britain in the early modern period, where this madness came from.
> Let's flip it upside down: never before[1] in history could you be bared from earning your food from your own work, and same for housing. That's the entire reason why people need welfare: there's no berries or roots to harvest, no game to hunt, no fields to farm, no vacant lot to build your house on with the help of your family and friends. All of this is behind the control of the gatekeepers who own the means of subsistence. The modern world is a prison in that regard.
This is a false equivalence. There are odd-jobs now like they were in the past, with much better benefits. There are two classes of people on welfare: Those wo can't work and those who could but don't, for whatever reason. The first class couldn't work hunter or gathering jobs in the past and the second class would be forced to do so out of necessity. The modern world is not a prison for these people, but instead provides a cushion for our nation's weakest. These people wouldn't have had the opportunities you state. They would have just died instead.
> No, you misread me: barely nobody with your or my standard of living would voluntarily adopt this lifestyle.
I agree entirely. 95% of the world's population do not have our standard of living. Which is why they try to migrate into the west. Even European countries with the lowest standards of welfare provide lifestyles and opportunities that seem like luxury to poor people from all over the world.
> You act as if the ability not to work was a luxury that made all this worthwhile, but the truth is almost nobody ever voluntarily leave the wage-slavery state to take advantage of this luxury. Why that in your opinion?
You are correct, they don't and that is not my opinion of European natives. But people leave the state of real slavery and spend their entire life savings with hopes to cross over into the West. Europe will have to protect the standards of welfare like Denmark already does, if we want to keep benefits up to standard for the people who are already here.
> Does that mean that Afghan farmers and people in Favelas are not struggling by your definition?
Of course not, they just struggle differently.
> Please read the massive literature about how many people refuse to go there even when it's close to their home (it's not always, especially in suburban or rural places) because they're “worth more than this”.
That struggle is entirely self-made and quite frankly, not the problem of the Government. Opportunities are readily available. There is no shame in going to a soup kitchen. I had the same sentiment in the past, went there, and dropped any prejudice, because I was hungry.
> You fail to realize how almost all of these (that is, everything except access to public pools) can be basic human needs in modern societies
You would think, but this even the richest country on the earth doesn't provide good schooling to poor children.
> internet is basically mandatory for many government-related stuff
This made me laugh. It's still Germany we're talking about.
> Also, since I can't find it easily on the web, does welfare in Germany genuinely provide access to a car
We do. More often than not, if the Government deems that you don't need a car, you're granted free public transport. I've made use of this system. It was fine.
> because the lack of mobility is a huge blocker for people to get back to the job market
I'd wager the largest blocker for people to get back into the job market is that wages haven't kept up with welfare costs. There is an incredibly sharp drop off point for welfare benefits. For most people able of only unskilled labor, there is a loss of money if they start working at minimum wage level.
We have failed our immigration efforts because of a couple of factors, one of which being the availability of welfare benefits. I know how this sounds, but it's true. Compared to other European nations, for example, only about every fifth Ukranian refuge has found work here. Poland, which does not provide a lot of welfare for refugees, has seen a working rate of 70% in the same group. This problem is twofold however, refugees by and large benefit from unskilled labour and manufacturing, work which is rare to come by in Germany.
I'm not saying we should lower benefits. The only possibility I see is an increase of wages, which by and large isn't really possible in Germany; our infrastructure and global economic competitiveness is declining. The job market is in a dire situation right now and jobs opportunities are getting less available each day. Germany is in a catastrophic state right now and there's no solution. We have a fast aging population, rising inflation, housing, and food costs and too few workers.
> You would think, but this even the richest country on the earth doesn't provide good schooling to poor children.
Interesting to see how the topic you know the best (from your GF as I understand it) is exactly the one where government isn't doing enough. You see what I mean by TV giving you wrong impressions on topics you're less familiar with …
And here an example of someone starving because Hartz IV being cut: https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article818850/Hartz-IV-Empfa...
Yes, that's not a common case, but it happens.
Here an article about 5.5 million Germans not being able to pay for heating:
https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/armut-5-5-million...
You‘re really going to make your point with an Article from 2007 of a mentally ill man that didn‘t even answer his letters from the Arbeitsamt? He didn‘t even apply for aid. Also, you never have to go hungry in Germany. Anyone can go to a Suppenküche and get meals for free.
Your other article is from 2022, the middle of the Ukraine war which caused an incredible explosion in heating costs. There is no mention of welfare there. Even then, if you actually read the stats behind it, Germany was still in the top 3 EU wide by a far margin. Also, as per the Statistisches Bundesamt, the people polled gave self assessed answers in these polls. There is no information to be found on the severity or degree of how many funds they were lacking, or even what „enough heating“ is supposed to mean. Bit disappointing to be honest.
These articles do not support your point at all. What even is your point? Are you even German? You‘re discussing from a point of severe misinformation. I really don‘t get your agenda here.
Given the full thread, you claimed both things here:
>> It is free money for everyone. Everyone obviously excluding the people who work full-time and who are paying taxes so that "everyone" can live of Bürgergeld.
> Oh wow, the exact thing people have been saying would happen has happened. Turn's out Quasi-UBI is a drain on tax paying citizens after all. Amazing.
The first one is not my statement, but a direct quote from the top poster.
The second comment makes no statement about it being free and easy. Just that UBI money is being largely spent on leisure activities. It also is a drain on taxes.
Nowhere there do I talk about easiness or inflation - at all. On the contrary, you‘ve been alerted of your easily disproven statements multiple times in this thread and not just by me. Let‘s keep being civil about this though.
500$?? You’re either uninformed, lying, or really bad at math:
- 561€ cash hand out alone amount to 610$ already
- rent and heating are paid in full, which can be up to another 500€ in the city where I live
- health insurance is free which would otherwise cost ~300€ as a private insurance
Thus, Bürgergeld is closer to 1500$ or 3x your phantasy amount.