Many advocates of an unconditional basic income do not want to grant immigrants the same access to social benefits as Locals. This was the result of a study by the Institute of German economy (IW) in Cologne, which was released on Wednesday. On average, 42.4 percent of the European basic income supporters, immigrants wanted to be first, the same entitlements to social security benefits, “after you have worked for at least a year, and taxes paid,” said the IW according to the evaluation of surveys in 20 European countries.
“The preference appears to be paradoxical, since the independence of the employment biography is an essential criterion in the framework of the basic income debate”, stated the researchers. 27.4 percent of the respondents basic income supporters want to give, therefore immigrants only after the naturalisation, access to the welfare state. “A further 7.7 per cent of the supporters of the egalitarian base income come out of the closet as an extreme Welfare chauvinists, immigrants want to never have the same rights to social benefits”, said the IW.
The researchers evaluated survey data from the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2016. This is a biannual survey in a number of countries in the framework of a European research cooperation.
Thus, there is in most of the 20 countries considered, a majority support for a basic income to be paid out, whether someone is working or not.
In Germany, 46 per cent were in favour of such a concept. More than 50 percent of the respondents are therefore of the view that immigrants should have after a year of working and taxes paying for full access to the welfare state. Just under 24 percent, this should be only after the naturalization of the case, and two percent want to grant the same access to social benefits, never.
