Over a million people want an unconditional basic income

The idea of a basic income is winning more and more supporters – including outside party politics.

More than a million people already support the young NGO Mein Grundeinkommen (My Basic Income, German) and want to try out an unconditional basic income. The organisation recently passed the mark of 1,000,000 active users. Founded only four years ago, it is growing every day.

Particularly strongly represented are 30- to 40-year-olds with higher education – in other words, those who have experienced the rapid development of digitalisation from the very beginning. They see the introduction of an unconditional basic income as the urgently needed adaptation of social policy to the greatest social upheaval since the Industrial Revolution.

Besides the growing number of supporters, the exponentially growing volume of donations to Mein Grundeinkommen also shows how relevant the topic currently is to people. At present, 12,000 euros in donations come together every three days – that is, one unconditional basic income for a year, according to the organisation.

Meera Zaremba, board member of Mein Grundeinkommen: “There is a direct way forward. Digitalisation can become a springboard to a more contented society if we add one decisive factor to the social system: unconditional basic security for every individual.”

Maheba Goedeke Tort, campaign manager at Mein Grundeinkommen: “Mein Grundeinkommen now unites more people than the CDU, SPD, FDP and Greens combined. The unconditional basic income is no longer the dream of a few individuals, but an issue that moves our entire society.”

Mein Grundeinkommen is both a non-profit start-up and a young NGO. Donations are collected via crowdfunding, and as soon as 12,000 euros have been raised, they are raffled as a one-year unconditional basic income. The response is huge: founded almost four years ago, Mein Grundeinkommen today fuels the debate on the unconditional basic income with 1 million users and more than 100,000 large and small donors.

WEBSITE: MEIN GRUNDEINKOMMEN (German)