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Basic income is typically called "Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen" (unconditional basic income) in Germany, to indicate the difference between what we already have and what BI aims for.

The social security tier you seem to refer to (Arbeitslosengeld II, ALG II, also known as Hartz IV) has all kinds of conditions, eg. personal wealth above a certain value needs to be used first; significant others need to chip in first (and for people younger than 25 also their parents, and if you live in a flat share agreement, overzealous officials may try to exploit that fact); there's a cooperation requirement on seeking jobs (and the officers in charge to deal with that can mess with you in plenty ways).

The "father who has income on paper" (and presumably a job) scenario is the smallest problem, by the way. Alimony is capped at a living income (which happens to be defined as "enough to not receive social security benefits").

But it seems to me that the system is not very efficient to get people back into jobs, even though that's its basic premise: Continuing to receive ALG II can be a full-time job in itself.

The "promise" of unconditional basic income is discussed somewhere else on the page: you get the money, now you're free to live with that somehow or find a job on your own terms. It gets rid of the busywork, both for the recipient and the social security sector.




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