HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) – The “Hamburg tests basic income” project has failed. In the referendum on Sunday, 62.6 percent of citizens voted against the proposal for the initiative, while 37.4 percent voted for it, as the state electoral office announced as preliminary results. Specifically, 213,380 Hamburg residents voted for the referendum, but 356,690 voted against it. According to the information, voter turnout was 43.7 percent.
The initiative admitted defeat that evening. “We lost the referendum,” she explained. But much more was gained. “We have shown that basic income is not a fringe issue, but a serious proposal for a fairer society.” Every third person voted for it.
It was the second attempt by the initiative to introduce a model experiment. At the beginning of 2020, the initiators had already collected the necessary number of 10,000 valid signatures. However, a subsequent planned referendum was stopped by the Hamburg Constitutional Court in the summer of 2023 at the request of the red-green Senate. The initiators then revised their draft law and started the new initiative.
2,000 people were to receive monthly money from the city
In the first state model experiment, the initiators wanted to provide 2,000 representatively selected Hamburg residents with a basic income for three years. This year this would have been 1,346 euros per month plus health insurance. However, your own income would be taken into account. If the model test had begun in 2027, the initiative would have estimated that the city would have incurred costs of around 50 million euros.
The initiative also wanted to use a scientific process to find out whether the basic income can work. Before the vote, the emeritus professor of economics and founding director of the Hamburg World Economic Institute, Thomas Straubhaar, was convinced that the Hamburg model experiment would offer the opportunity “to learn how a basic income must be designed in order to meet the expectations – including of future generations – of a fair, affordable and strong welfare state.”
Considerable criticism from the Hamburg citizens
But there was also considerable criticism. Apart from the left, all parliamentary groups were against the basic income. The SPD and the Greens considered the model to be too expensive. It also does not provide any scientific added value because there have already been model tests elsewhere. In addition, the basic income is not unconditional because income is taken into account. For the CDU, the referendum put “an expensive, half-baked project up for vote that raises more questions than it answers.”
But the employee-oriented Hans Böckler Foundation also advised against a tax-financed basic income. Among other things, their researchers saw the danger of a Trojan horse in that the costs could serve as an argument for canceling all transfer payments, including pensions.
The basic income would also have a significant impact on the wage structure, as it would completely relieve employers of the obligation to pay living wages, they argued. The end result would be a “super combination wage with a high state share and a low employer share”. From the perspective of the foundation researchers, it would make more sense to promote training, starting a family or starting a business through more generous transfers.
The referendum was actually planned parallel to the federal election
The initiators of “Hamburg tests basic income” actually wanted to hold the vote together with the federal election originally planned for September. But due to the early end of the traffic light government in Berlin, this election was brought forward to February, so that the referendum was now held without a “real” election./klm/DP/zb