Germany: The Self-Sufficient Entrepreneur Trope and the Pandemic Gnawing Away at It

Abstract

The German response to the threat which the Covid-19 crisis has posed to self-employed workers reflects an approach which so far has largely focused on the prevention of bogus self-employment. While this approach has been further reinforced, to the point where the use of self-employed contractors has been banned outright in individual occupations, plummeting incomes of the ‘genuine’ self-employed remained unaddressed in the government’s crisis response for almost one year. The contribution describes the evolution of this approach as the pandemic progressed, and discusses whether the experience of this crisis may constitute a turning point in a policy tradition which has so far relegated the self-employed to the bare minimum of fully means-tested social assistance benefits when facing macroeconomic shocks as well as individual social risks. In-Work Poverty in Germany, Self-Employed Workers, Bogus Self-Employment, Covid-19 Income Support Schemes, Social Assistance Benefits, Macroeconomic Shocks