Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that politicians think their people are a herd of donkeys. According to the cliché, these are animals that can only be made to move with one trick: the famous carrot held in front of their noses. This image is incentive thinking in its purest form.
We encounter it in reporting on political debates and in labor market research based on economic science. The general assumption is that the long-term unemployed will only set foot on the labor market with financial benefits and, if necessary, the threat of sanctions. It can also be found in the other direction: Only with a sufficiently large pay gap to doing nothing will the employable person remain active. This is how the wage gap principle is formulated. Or, in the language of the donkey: IAH.
Citizen's income enters the second stage
The media have just reported on it again. Six months after its introduction, the Citizen's Income is entering its second stage. Integration into the labor market is now to be given greater priority. To this end, incentives are to be created to encourage the unemployed to take up training opportunities. This is because, according to the employment agency, the main reason for remaining unemployed is a lack of education and training. Until now, it has been more worthwhile to take on short-term jobs than to gain longer-term qualifications.
This all sounds very unworldly. After all, if you are struggling to make ends meet on the standard rate, earning extra money is a rational decision. And not shirking behavior, as the talk of incentives suggests. And what's more: does learning work with an incentive? When is a person ready to learn? When they have the confidence to do so, when institutions and teachers treat them with respect and, above all, when they can afford it. Incentives are, after all, paid training courses. 150 per month is added to the standard rate. A bonus of €1,500 on successful completion.
Incentive or condition for education?
Is that an incentive? Or is it simply a necessary condition for seizing educational opportunities? Talking about incentives is the problem: it turns people into donkeys instead of taking them seriously. At least that's what Mr. Höweler, one of the interview partners from the teaching research I conducted a few years ago on the effect of sanctions on the predecessor of the citizen's income, unemployment benefit II (ALG II), teaches us.
Seminar and assistants interviewed people on both sides of the desk with me in two job centers in the region: clerks, managers and sanctioned recipients of ALG II. Höweler, a trained office administrator, would have done anything to find his way back into the job market. The case reconstruction shows him to be a performance ethicist, someone who feels a strong sense of duty towards gainful employment. However, he experiences the cooperation with the job center as harassment, against which he develops protective strategies of self-assertion. His obstacle to placement is a strong attachment to the specific job, his conscience and a sense of responsibility towards his family. He does not want just any job and above all does not want to have to "rip off" customers. He cannot be managed against his will; he can only sell if he is convinced of the product and the customer's wishes. If he has promised to help with the move and has informed the job center of this, he will not come to the arranged consultation.
His keen sense of loss of dignity and attacks on his autonomy also makes him resist orders from the authorities. He would rather accept a sanction. Höweler does not need an incentive, not even the third training course, but an authority that recognizes him as a person and a job in which he can demonstrate his existing skills.
On the other hand, he would see an incentive as an insult - after all, he is not a donkey.