Glass Almanac
When Emma’s email pinged in July 2021, she half-expected a spam offer. Instead, she discovered she’d been randomly chosen to receive a basic income of €1,200 every month—no strings attached. Over 2.5 million Germans entered the draw run by the non-profit Mein Grundeinkommen, yet only 122 names were picked¹. “It felt like hitting the jackpot,” Emma told me, recalling how she danced around her kitchen before sharing the news with her flatmate. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, the relative poverty threshold for a single-person household in 2022 was about €1,250 per month net², placing Emma’s stipend right at the poverty line.
One of the earliest benefits Emma noticed wasn’t a shopping spree but deeper sleep. “I used to wake up at 3 am worrying about bills,” she explained. “Now, I sleep through until sunrise.” A peer-reviewed study in Nature Human Behaviour found that recipients of unconditional cash grants report significant reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms within weeks³. Emma’s experience echoes that of Markus in Berlin, who traded midnight stress for morning yoga, crediting the stipend for his newfound calm.
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