German anti-UBI economist: we already have a basic income, with just a few conditions

It surely feels good to have the chief of a German economics research institute say what we said before: future social security retirement benefits should not be included in calculating a person's "wealth".

This being said, the two aspects this post is about are:
1) The corporate conservative German claim we already have a basic income, with just a few conditions.
2) The statement some jobs will only be done if you have a financial incentive.

Those claims are routinely being made by the German think tank Ifo and almost verbatim by most company executives. Linking to the article in Zeit online is merely a convenience. There are plenty of other examples out there.

The blogster personally regards both arguments as disingenuous, hence worth a rant.

To understand the first argument better, it might help to clarify the German term, which is "bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen", "unconditional universal income". Germans could also call it "universelles Grundeinkommen", but they don't. In purely psycho-linguistic terms, the argument "with just a few conditions" would be pretty much impossible if the German term were "universelles Grundeinkommen", in other words, you cannot modify it and still be credible.

It is a completely different situation with "we already have a universal basic income, with just a few conditions" if you can add a good reason for the existence of these "few" conditions. This is exactly what opponents of UBI are doing.*

In the article referenced above, the claims above take this specific form:
We have a basic income. The welfare state secures people. But it is not without conditions. Only when you have used up your own means and still cannot make it, then the state intervenes. I find this is a marvelous achievement. Universal basic income cannot be financed. Also, masses of people would quit working. This is incompatible with a social free market.

The sequence of claims is interesting.
He drops the "universal" from the get go. Note that the condition is separated from a short, matter of fact like "we have a basic income" by a full sentence. That sentence "the welfare state secures people" bridges the conceptual gap between "basic income" and the nature of what the welfare state provides, which is not a "basic income". The abstract collective term in German for the different benefits is Grundsicherung (basic safety), the various components all use the respective German for "assistance" and "benefits". The most common scheme, Hartz-IV, is a means tested benefits scheme designed under the concept of "assist and assert", and comes with a wide variety of administrative sanctions that can and do reduce the benefits by various amounts down to zero in continued violation of the constitutional court's mandated minimum needs for pure survival.

So, once the opponent has planted the notion that "basic income" is equivalent to welfare benefits, he adds "used up your own means", which other opponents often couch in explicit terms of fairness, such as it is only fair to ask people to use up their own means before asking for help. He reinforces this with I find this is a marvelous achievement. The next two statements are the blanket statements Universal basic income cannot be financed. Also, masses of people would quit working.

Neither of these have been proven true.

Then he comes back to the German concept of the "social free market", aka. capitalism tempered by social programs, without elaborating the claim.

Interestingly, neither the two interviewers of Zeit online nor the "opposing" expert challenge him on equating "basic income" with welfare benefits.

The closing argument that many jobs will only get done if there is a monetary incentive seems to be viewed as so fundamental that nobody ever questions it.
His version even includes the modifier "important", "there are many important jobs that will only get done when there is a financial incentive".

While some less careful CEO gave away the game by citing trash collection as an example, the pros don't do that.

So, the anti-UBI person does not provide any example of "important jobs", leaving it up to the reader to figure things out.

So, let's do this:
a) Universal basic income is given to everybody to cover the basic needs of life in such a way that it alleviates constant worries about food, shelter, whether to buy a cup of coffee or two.
b) Recipients can and will often work to earn more money, as demonstrated by small scale field tests over time.
c) The jobs that, according to him, would not get done, are therefore jobs where you make so little money above the UBI that they are not worth doing.
d) This leaves, hey, trash collection and other minimum wage jobs, or jobs so gross nobody would want to do them.

Which makes the term "incentive" utterly ridiculous.

Since he equates "basic income" and current welfare benefits, we should have tons of jobs that are not getting done right now.
And once people have used up their means and get that "basic income", shouldn't there be many who kick back and enjoy it for the rest of their days?

Or are we counting on the social and financial pressures associated with access to that "basic income" to be the incentive that gets many important jobs done?

So, when in Germany, never let anybody drop the "universal" in UBI.

Equating a system designed to punish people who are out of work to one that respects people is a rather marvelous achievement.

* The critical passage in German is this:
Fuest: Wir haben ja schon ein Grundeinkommen. Der Sozialstaat sichert die Menschen ab. Es ist allerdings nicht bedingungslos. Nur wenn man seine eigenen Mittel ausgeschöpft hat und es trotzdem nicht reicht, greift der Staat ein. Ich halte das für eine Riesenerrungenschaft. Ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen ist nicht bezahlbar. Außerdem würden die Menschen massenhaft aufhören zu arbeiten. Mit einer sozialen Marktwirtschaft ist das unvereinbar.