The initiators of the basic income referendum collected 53,000 signatures two months after the start of their campaign. The Tagesspiegel learned this from the initiators on Wednesday. The referendum narrowly missed the self-imposed collection target of 60,000 signatures halfway through the collection period.
Laura Brämswig, founder of “Expedition Basic Income”, told the Tagesspiegel: “We doubled our collection rate in June.” Around 500 volunteers are now collecting. “Many of them are setting themselves ever higher goals and not only collecting from friends or work, but also from collection campaigns across the city,” said Brämswig.
The popular initiative must collect around 175,000 signatures by September 5, the target it has set itself is 220,000. If the target is reached, a referendum will take place a few months later.
Specifically, the initiators want more than 1000 people to be provided with an unconditional basic income for around three years as part of a model project. Several variants are to be tried out and scientifically supported. If the referendum succeeds, this would be the first field test of this kind in Germany.
The popular initiative is supported, among others, by Marcel Fratzscher, President of the Institute for German Economics (DIW). Fratzscher says: “The pilot project would give science and politics trend-setting information about how the transformation of the social systems in Germany can succeed in the future.”
[If you want all the latest news live on your phone, we recommend our app, which you can download here for Apple and Android devices.]
For success, the initiative now wants to collect more at major events, such as the techno parade “Rave the Planet”. Schoolchildren or students are to be offered summer jobs to collect signatures in the summer. The House of Representatives rejected the model project last year.
