No one is unnecessary. There is enough to do in our society. Today’s system, with its focus on full-time gainful employment at all costs, prevents a fairer and more reasonable distribution of the available work. While the workload for most working people is getting heavier, the german Bürgergeld-System, with its rigid „additional earnings“ limits and its coercive measures, discourages more and more people from contributing to society in their own way, be it through unpaid work, by trying self-employment or even marginal employment. Unemployed people are made to understand that only employment subject to social security contributions is a legitimate goal.
An unconditional basic income, on the other hand, helps to „activate“ people because it opens up activity opportunities beyond full-time employment and makes it clear to people that their own initiative and decision-making ability are trusted. Through the recognition of a variety of different forms of activity, also and especially through the unbureaucratic facilitation of part-time work, hourly or project-based employment and through the improved basis for self-employment and freelance work, the unemployed are given opportunities to return to working life. At the same time, a basic income means better opportunities for working people who would like to have more time for themselves, for their family or for civic engagement to find a different relationship between work and other life. In this way, the boundaries between classic gainful employment and other activities become more fluid, and no longer exclude the supposedly unnecessary and include the supposedly only high achievers.
Read more at Hamburger Netzwerk Grundeinkommen link (currently available in German only)