Till Hilmar, Who deserves economic relief? Examining Twitter/X debates about Covid-19 economic relief for small businesses and the self-employed in Germany (2024)

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Journal article by Till Hilmar of the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna, Who deserves economic relief? Examining Twitter/X debates about Covid-19 economic relief for small businesses and the self-employed in Germany, published in the Journal of Social Policy (2025), 54, 1153–1169. Combining computational social science methods with qualitative analysis, it studies the debate about direct subsidies on Twitter/X between March 2020 and June 2021 in Germany, where the self-employed are typically outsiders to the state insurance system. The article finds the discourse characterised by concern that economic relief threatens to blur existing boundaries of worth, with the reciprocity principle of deservingness theory pivotal and justice-as-redress surfacing as a novel dimension. It notes that relief spending reached around $14 trillion by early 2021.

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Journal of Social Policy (2025), 54, 1153–1169
doi:10.1017/S0047279424000096

ARTICLE

Who deserves economic relief? Examining
Twitter/X debates about Covid-19 economic
relief for small businesses and the
self-employed in Germany
Till Hilmar
Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Email: till.hilmar@univie.ac.at

(Received 5 June 2023; revised 16 March 2024; accepted 17 May 2024; first published online 12 September 2024)

Abstract
The economic shock of the Covid-19 crisis has disproportionately impacted small
businesses and the self-employed. Around the globe, their survival during the pandemic
often relied heavily on government assistance. This article explores how economic relief to
business is understood through the lens of deservingness in the public. It examines the case
of Germany, where the government has responded to the pandemic by implementing an
extensive support programme. Notably, in this context, the self-employed are typically
outsiders to the state insurance system. Combining computational social science methods
and a qualitative analysis, the article focuses on the debate about direct subsidies on the
social media platform Twitter/X between March 2020 and June 2021. It traces variation in
the patterns of claim making in what is a rich debate about pandemic state support, finding
that this discourse is characterised by the concern that economic relief threatens to blur
existing boundaries of worth in society. The reciprocity principle of deservingness theory is
pivotal in asserting business identities in times of crisis, yet it also reveals a fundamentally
ambiguous relationship with the principle of need. Additionally, the claim of justice-as-
redress, as a novel dimension of reciprocity, surfaces as an important theme in this debate.

Keywords: deservingness; stimulus; self-employed; symbolic boundaries; text-as-data

Introduction
In response to the coronavirus shock, governments around the world mobilised
enormous sums of economic and social policy assistance. In the spring of 2020,
policymakers around the globe were united in their commitment to keep economies
‘on life support’ (Tooze, 2021), implementing fiscal and monetary rescue programmes
that far superseded any comparable peacetime effort in history. Roughly a year into
the pandemic, by early 2021, Covid-19 relief spending for households and firms had
already amounted to around $14 trillion (Economist, 2021). While, in this early stage
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1154 Till Hilmar

of the pandemic, resourceful welfare states like Germany mobilised up to 40 per cent
of their GDP in subsidies and credit guarantees, many low-income countries also
amassed considerable resources to mitigate the profound economic shock and the
existential danger to people’s livelihoods (Anderson et al., 2020; Tooze, 2021).
In this moment of crisis and contingency, fundamental parameters of existing
material and symbolic relationships of welfare between state and society are
challenged (Grasso et al., 2021). Against this background, this article asks: What
moral ideas do people draw on in making claims about economic policies aimed at
mitigating external shocks? I examine a case where economic policies have broad
social repercussions: the pandemic relief measures targeting small businesses and
the self-employed. These groups faced significant vulnerability to the economic
consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and relied on public assistance for their
survival (Block et al., 2022; Fairlie, 2020). The pandemic downturn created a
peculiar dilemma for them: in light of the comprehensive economic shock caused by
the health emergency and subsequent business closures after March 2020, the state
had to step in to ensure the economic survival of hundreds of thousands of small
businesses and self-employed. More or less overnight, large swaths of the small
business community found themselves in need of state assistance. This sudden
dependence of small businesses on state support during the pandemic marks a
significant rupture in their traditional self-perception as independent of government
action (Langsæther & Evans, 2020).
In this article, I present empirical evidence of diverse patterns of claim-making in
the rich social media discourse surrounding the meaning and legitimacy of
economic policies. The analysis finds that a key point of moral contestation lies in
how people perceive the shift in the relationship between various groups and the
state due to these policies: In this new crisis reality, who gets what, and why? As a
contribution to the literature on deservingness (Gniza & Wrede, 2022; Herke &
Janky, 2023; Meuleman et al., 2020; van Oorschot et al., 2017), it offers a novel
perspective by focusing on small businesses and the self-employed as recipients of
state assistance and using process-generated data. This approach reveals that the
reciprocity principle is essential for asserting business identities during crises, and it
uncovers a fundamentally ambiguous relationship with the principle of need.
Additionally, the analysis outlines a new aspect of the reciprocity principle: redress
claims, aimed at restoring status and worth based on the idea of a legitimate social
order in the past.
The article explores the case of Germany. Berlin has implemented one of the
most comprehensive pandemic relief programmes globally, fuelling debates on who
qualifies to receive financial assistance. I draw on data gathered from the social
media platform Twitter/X (Shugars et al., 2021) and employ a mixed-methods
approach (Mohr et al., 2015; Nelson, 2020) that combines computational social
science and qualitative analyses. Building on a corpus of 135,381 tweets, I propose a
computationally driven, methodologically sound way to select a specific subset of
this data for a qualitative, in-depth analysis. The findings add to a growing body of
research that examines welfare orientations on social media and in digital
environments (Gielens et al., 2022; Theiss, 2022), providing innovative additions to
standardised instruments of social policy research.

Approaching the meaning of pandemic state assistance
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous governments around the
world implemented comprehensive economic relief packages to prevent their
economies from collapsing (Tooze, 2021). Social scientists have begun to dissect the
origins and the consequences of these programmes. A burgeoning political economy
literature interrogates how governments aimed to stabilize markets and maintain
employment such as through short-time work programmes (Ebbinghaus & Lehner,
2021), distribute stimulus payments to households and families (Aizenman et al.,
2021), and save firms and businesses through credit guarantees and subsidies as well
as the temporary suspension of insolvency rules (Anderson et al., 2021; Belitski
et al., 2022). The extent and magnitude of Covid-19 fiscal assistance programmes
were influenced by pre-existing institutional and cultural norms that form the basis
of welfare regimes in various societies (Bariola & Collins, 2021; Cantillon et al.,
2021). Despite the wide variation in the scope of these programmes across the globe
and their temporary nature, they had a significant impact on expanding existing
welfare arrangements. In many regions, following years of neoliberal austerity, the
state took on an active role in safeguarding large segments of the population from
the unrestrained and crisis-induced dynamics of the market.

Public narratives about pandemic economic relief
Economic relief programmes are not merely objectively existent; knowledge about
them is disseminated across the public sphere. Accompanying this knowledge are
processes of evaluation, which carry normative messages that either resonate with or
diverge from prevailing moral understandings. Researching these processes matters
because the legitimacy of economic and social policies relies on how they are
perceived, interpreted, and assessed by the public.
A small but growing strand of scholarship examines how pandemic policies were
communicated through cultural frames and narratives (Boin & ‘t Hart, 2022;
Kuhlmann & Blum, 2021). Boin & ‘t Hart (2022) for instance examine different
‘framing pathways’ that link crisis interpretations and policy outcomes. The present
article focuses on pandemic economic relief for small businesses and the self-
employed, which, from this perspective, can be characterised as redistributive
policies. In contrast to regulatory policies, which enforce particular types of
behaviour such as a stay-at-home-orders, redistributive policies aim at distributing
resources to particular target groups (Kuhlmann & Blum, 2021). In redistributive
policies, there is typically a condition of scarcity involved, as limited resources are
distributed. Welfare researchers have long argued that redistributive policies are, in
principle, concerned with the problem of who should get what, and why (van
Oorschot et al., 2017). In other words, these types of policies provide individuals
with access to specific material resources; at the same time, they also establish a
framework of rights that determine which groups are eligible to receive benefits
from the state. Ingram and Schneider (2015), in their paradigmatic framework of
meaning-centred policy analysis, posit that public policy making involves the
normative construction of target groups. When formulating policy proposals,
policymakers delineate and categorise particular groups in society and attribute

positive or negative characteristics to them. Political decision-makers determine
whether these target groups are considered deserving or undeserving of specific
treatments provided by the state.
However, to gain a better understanding of how the material and symbolic effects
of redistributive policies are understood in the public at large, it is necessary to move
beyond the perspectives of a limited group of political stakeholders. This includes
examining the narratives, images, and symbols about target groups in wider
discourse and media (Barbehön, 2020).

The CARIN deservingness scheme and symbolic boundaries
People evaluate relief policies and their target groups through moral frameworks.
The CARIN deservingness scheme (Herke & Janky, 2023; Laenen et al., 2019;
Meuleman et al., 2020; van Oorschot et al., 2017) provides one critical conceptual
structure, derived from robust empirical findings, that allows for the exploration of
this proposition. Scholars find that, in numerous European societies, the ways in
which the eligibility of individuals for state support is construed – how individuals
are assigned to specific groups in processes of symbolic classification and evaluation
(‘the elderly’, ‘immigrants’, and so on) – has implications for determining who is
considered as more or less deserving of state support in public opinion. The five
dimensions of deservingness, according to which social groups, and the individuals
who are matched to these groups, are considered worthy or unworthy of state
assistance, are as follows: control (ability to resolve difficulties independently),
attitude (expression of gratitude and compliance), reciprocity (past or present
actions and commitments to contribute), identity (perceived group affiliation), and
need (extent of damage). These categories are not mutually exclusive and their
relative importance varies empirically, see Meuleman et al. (2020, pp. 2–3).
The CARIN scheme has been developed within a specific context, that of poverty
attributions and social assistance (van Oorschot et al., 2017). The following analysis
adds to the conversation about the model in two ways. First, I introduce a novel
context: Echoing recent discourse that expands deservingness to entities like regions
(Gniza & Wrede, 2022), I explore how it may apply to corporate actors as recipients of
state assistance. The Covid-19 pandemic created a context of crisis-induced expansion
of social need, making extensive assistance to business necessary. This situation also
effectively blurs the boundaries between economic policy and social policy.
Second, while most of the evidence on deservingness relies on standardized social
research methods, the present study contributes to the small but growing field of
qualitative analysis in this field (Heuer & Zimmermann, 2020; Nielsen et al., 2020;
Theiss, 2022). In this perspective, the aim is not to provide an exhaustive analysis of all
five criteria or to measure higher or lower scores for each but rather to investigate ‘how
the criteria are used and how they co-function’ (Nielsen et al., 2020). Such an approach
aims to yield insights into the underlying structures of reasoning and the process
through which people discern deservingness cues with qualitative depth (Theiss, 2022).
However, when working with process-generated data – data not created for
analysis within a specific framework – we need an additional conceptual instrument
that allows to identify the types of claims that may articulate ideas of deservingness.
The symbolic boundary approach (Lamont & Molnár, 2002) is a useful addition in

this regard. It explores how people depict others in specific ways, creating notions of
‘us’ versus ‘them’ and delineating social positions in a relational field. This approach
is particularly relevant here because it focuses on the moral criteria used in these
distinctions, especially concerning inequality, and because it focuses on how
relationships of proximity or distance are construed in this way. This fits with
deservingness theory which claims that by and large, moral evaluations primarily
focus on the recipients of public provisions rather than the provisions themselves.
Crucially, these moral evaluations are informed by a relational logic, by the ways in
which the pattern of relationships between the relevant actors are perceived.

Case and context
The small business community and pandemic economic relief
In early 2020, as concerns about the novel coronavirus grew, people started altering
their behaviour by reducing their shopping and travel activities. Governments
implemented various social distancing measures and imposed restrictions on
everyday economic interactions – soon, numerous businesses faced an immense
challenge to their survival. Similar to other countries (Fairlie, 2020), small- and
medium-sized businesses in Germany also experienced significant economic
hardships, especially in sectors heavily dependent on direct customer interaction
and interpersonal contact such as hospitality, tourism, travel, retail, education,
entertainment, arts, and the event industry (Block et al., 2022; Dörr et al., 2022;
Schürmann et al., 2022).
Germany stands out as a captivating case for this analysis because research
indicates that its welfare model is predicated on a strong expectation of preserving
work-based status (Taylor-Gooby et al., 2020) – yet the impact of the pandemic shock
has led to a pronounced realignment of relationships between particular social groups
and the state. The self-employed have long occupied an outsider position in the
German welfare state. As the country’s public insurance system is tied to employment
status, they are typically ineligible for benefits like unemployment support
(Schürmann et al., 2022; Stamm et al., 2022). However, when the pandemic struck,
small businesses and the self-employed found themselves in desperate need of state
assistance. At the beginning of the crisis, approximately 10 per cent of the German
working population were self-employed, totalling around 4.2 million people.1 This
group was immediately and profoundly affected by the economic shock: during the
initial months of the pandemic, about 60 per cent of the self-employed experienced
sales or income losses, compared to only about 15 per cent of employees in dependent
employment (Block et al., 2022, p. 2).
The German government initiated one of the largest and most comprehensive
pandemic relief efforts in the global comparison (OECD, 2020; Tooze, 2021). In late
March 2020, not long after the first restrictions to economic and private life were
announced, Berlin decided on a range of measures such as direct subsidies, loan
guarantees, reduced interest rates, as well as tax credits to support businesses and
prevent their collapse (Federal Ministry of Finance BMF, 2020; Federal Ministry of
the Economy and Climate BMWK, 2022). By June 2021, around €100 billion in
subsidies, credits, and loans had been spent or guaranteed on various Covid-19 relief

measures for businesses; by June 2022, this number stood at around €130 billion.
Small businesses and the self-employed were granted access to direct subsidies – in
the form of cash transfers – to cover immediate losses. For businesses with up to ten
employees, more than €50 billion were initially granted in direct subsidies
(applicants could receive up to €15,000); this programme was soon flanked by
subsidies to operating costs. Overall, Berlin went to particularly great lengths in the
effort to save businesses, deploying an immediate fiscal impulse of around 13,5 per
cent of GDP by April 2020 alone, about three or four times higher than of most of
European countries (OECD, 2020, p. 27).
However, as the crisis unfolded, questions arose about who could access the funds,
who qualified to receive them, and who should rightfully be recipients. In fact, several
obstacles emerged due to the longstanding institutional legacy of Germany’s social
security mechanisms. Because of their peculiar status in the German welfare system,
the self-employed were not eligible to access short time work (a major cushioning
instrument in times of crises that is, however, reserved for employees, see Cantillon
et al. (2021)). Instead, in addition to cash transfers (which, however, did not cover
living expenses but merely operating costs in the first instantiation), Berlin decided on
granting self-employed individuals access to basic social assistance (Grundsicherung,
also known as Hartz 4). In normal times, this instrument is reserved for individuals
experiencing long-term bouts of unemployment. According to one estimate, by June
2021, approximately 132,000 self-employed individuals in Germany had already
availed themselves of this programme (Business Insider, 2021). Stamm et al. (2022,
p. 2) suggest that the peculiar space that the self-employed occupy in the German
welfare system constitutes a ‘no-man’s land’ between capital and labour. This social
location shapes expectations about what small entrepreneurs owe to the state, and
what the state owes to them. Moreover, individuals in these groups are typically critical
of state activity in the economy. They tend to hold negative views of government
redistribution and favour meritocratic, performance-based economic attitudes
(Langsæther & Evans, 2020).

Data and method
For the subsequent analysis, I draw on a combination of a text-as-data and a
qualitative approach. Broadly, text-as-data comprises to a set of tools that
encompass ‘automated content analysis methods’ for ‘the systematic analysis of
large-scale text collections’ (Grimmer & Stewart, 2013, p. 268). These kinds of
analyses can complement the analysis of survey data. Consequently, they can
broaden our understanding of how broader media, cultural, and social contexts
influence the communication and interpretation of social and economic policies
(Gielens et al., 2022; Laenen et al., 2019; Theiss, 2022).

Analysing Twitter/X Data
Methodologically, this analysis follows the principle that qualitative and context-
specific methodologies are not merely a means to validate statistical methods: when
conducted in a context-sensitive manner, mixed-methods approaches can yield new
insights into how meanings are created and socially shared (Andreotta et al., 2019;

Grigoropoulou & Small, 2022; Nelson, 2020) (for further details, see Appendix). An
open approach is required, because social media data is process-generated, meaning
it was not crafted or elicited for the purposes of the analysis (Baur et al., 2020).
Instead, it is inherently rich – and necessarily also shaped – by the context of the
social media platform where it originated.
I combine text-as-data and a qualitative content analysis of Twitter/X data (Shugars
et al., 2021). There are some methodological constraints that come with the use of this
type of data. Above all, while Twitter/X is a space of public debate, it is not a public
sphere in traditional sense of the concept. The platform contains ‘segments of
numerous, overlapping, disconnected conversations’ (ibid., p. 2). While shared topics
(shared objects of talk) provide an indicator of conversations on this platform, we
cannot assume there to be a ‘unity of discourse’ (ibid.) Twitter/X is a private, for-profit
company; its algorithms of popularity are part of a broader, corporate attention
economy. The company seeks to increase user engagement by encouraging attention-
seeking behaviour, thereby influencing user activity to boost platform traffic.
I download, pre-process and analyse a corpus of tweets (for this and the
following, see Appendix) based on a keyword search of the names of German
pandemic economic relief programmes for businesses, focusing on the direct
subsidies for small businesses and the self-employed. I include all tweets authored
between March 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 that mention one of the designated
keywords. This corpus consists of 357,398 tweets (for the text analysis, I remove
retweets, narrowing the corpus down to 135,381 tweets).2
I use text-as-data tools (Benoit et al., 2018) for constructing a sample from this
main corpus, cleaning the data, and analysing the text statistically. The analysis
proceeds in three steps: pattern detection, pattern refinement, and pattern validation
(Nelson, 2020, see Appendix). Why rely on qualitative methods and hand-coding
when analysing discourses on social and economic policies? Automated analyses of
text are rapidly advancing this field. However, I concur with (Gielens et al., 2022,
pp. 4–5) that if we aim to comprehend nuanced variations in arguments supporting
or opposing specific welfare policies, along with particular claims about the
appropriate relationship between these instruments and target groups, adopting a
mixed-methods approach with an interpretive emphasis offers a deeper level of
insight than standardised analyses.
Figure 1 summarises the overall workflow. It is guided by the principle that the
primary corpus should be condensed based on relevant dimensions through a series
of transparent steps that allow to investigate qualitative research questions using the
available data (Andreotta et al., 2019; see Figure A1 in Appendix).
I introduce deservingness criteria only in the pattern refinement stage of the
analysis. Deducing them directly from this material would overlook crucial
contextual details: What are these tweets about? In what ways do moral claims
appear in them, as part of what kinds of relational logics? To be able to address these
broader questions, the qualitative analysis of the final sample of tweets is performed
by, initially, drawing on inductive qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff, 2018;
Schreier, 2014). Using open coding, I generate codes inductively (up to three main
codes are allowed in a single tweet). I then analyse symbolic boundaries found in the
material – constructions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ to better understand the relational logics

Pattern detection Pattern refinement Pattern validation

Qualitative
Corpus Condensing the analysis of sub- Validation
construction corpus corpus

Figure 1. Workflow.

Figure 2. Number of times German Covid-19 direct subsidies are mentioned in tweets. March 1, 2020 –
June 30, 2021, n = 142585 (excluding retweets).

at play. On these grounds, I identify tweets in which deservingness criteria are
articulated and analyse examples of this connection.

Results
Mapping trends and topics associated with the subsidies
In mid-March 2020, about a week after the first measures to contain the virus were
implemented, the German government announced its first set of cash transfers for
small businesses (Federal Ministry of BMF, 2020). Figure 2 shows the distribution of
the keywords found in all tweets (excluding retweets) between March 1, 2020 and
June 30, 2021. The debate about the direct subsidies follows cycles of attention, with
single transfers becoming more or less salient over time.
The term Corona Assistance (Coronahilfen) functions as an overarching term, as
utilised by the federal government. The most vocal participants in this debate (see
Table A1 in Appendix) are institutional accounts, such as the Federal Ministry of
Finance, leading newspapers, and credit-issuing banks. Consequently, focusing
solely on the most active users or the most influential tweets could bias the analysis
towards content from professional accounts, typically managed by press depart-
ments. Therefore, to understand everyday, unscripted views on economic policies,

Table 1. Key claims that entail deservingness ideas

Claim Deservingness criteria articulated

Criticising inefficiency and delays NEED
Criticising exclusionary nature of assistances NEED, RECIPROCITY
Criticising unequal distribution (who gets what) IDENTITY, NEED

Criticising ‘excessive’ complaints by the self-employed NEED

the qualitative analysis concentrates on tweets from non-institutional accounts,
namely private, lay Twitter/X users. A random sample of tweets from various
institutional accounts – including politicians, administrative organisations, journal-
ists, media platforms, interest groups, and tax advisors – was analysed and
contrasted. This was done to understand and validate the implications of this
selection (for details on this step, see Appendix).

Qualitative analysis
The final analysis is based on a sub-corpus of 2,359 tweets. It comprises two steps:
first, mapping the range of claims and positions presented; and second, identifying the
relevant arguments associated with deservingness criteria within them. A set of
distinct patterns of claim making arise from the qualitative coding of the final corpus
(see Table 1). Recurring statements in the discussion which do not entail moral
arguments – and are thus not analysed in the following – frequently focus on sharing
information about the payments.
Roughly half of the analysed tweets can be linked to deservingness criteria – this
is a significant finding in itself. The claims made in them focus on questions such as
the distribution of resources, the reasons behind such allocations, and who should
receive support and why. These questions, it emerges, are often framed through
symbolic boundaries.

Criticising inefficiency and delays
Numerous arguments raise concerns about the overall inefficiency or inadequate
implementation of pandemic relief measures for small businesses and the self-
employed. This recurring motif is prevalent in public discussions surrounding social
and economic policies in a broader sense, as observed by welfare scholars
(cf. Gielens et al., 2022, p. 10). It includes assertions that characterise the assistances
as inadequate to meet the needs of the affected individuals, thereby typically linking
it to the principle of need. As one person remarks, ‘[The money] is not enough. I am
a solo self-employed [ : : : ] I had to close down one of my two carate schools for
good at the end of April, because I could not sustain it any more. The second will
follow soon!’. Additionally, there is widespread criticism of the delays, excessive
bureaucratic procedures, and a cumbersome application process, with numerous
issues reported regarding the ministry’s website.

Criticising the exclusionary nature of assistances
In the Twitter/X debate, the exclusionary nature of assistances emerges as a
significant concern, with many businesses experiencing a decline in profits but not
meeting the eligibility criteria for subsidies to cover their operating expenses in the
fall of 2020 (Bardt & Hüther, 2021, p. 21). Here, need-based deservingness claims
are often articulated. Such claims foreground the damage – not just to one’s
economic activity, but also to one’s livelihood.3 The self-employed (and more
frequently even, the solo self-employed) are described as ‘falling through the cracks’.
A recurring argument is that this is the case because the relief programmes only
address specific types of expenses, such as fixed operating costs (e.g., office space
rent), which are not typically incurred by these groups or are only incurred to a
minimal extent. There is significant frustration and anger regarding the fact that the
pandemic relief funds cannot be utilised for everyday expenses, such as living
expenses or private insurance contributions, which are typically essential for
sustaining a small business. As one person put it, ‘And what about the solo self-
employed? You cannot leave us out in the cold with the 25 per cent (‘New Start
Assistance’) by the federal government! This doesn’t even cover my social security
contributions, let alone my rent or my living expenses! We are falling through the
cracks in every respect!’ These arguments may focus on issues such as the
inadequacy of basic social assistance or the critique that certain individuals within
the small business community are unable to access it due to specific insurance or
living arrangements. As one person asserts, despairingly, ‘voluntary unemployment
insurance does not apply, because of #Corona-Emergency Assistance, which can
only be used for operating costs. #Hartz IV does not apply, because of an existing
voluntary unemployment insurance. #Solo self-employed’. In a more detailed
analysis, it is possible to differentiate between two types of need-based claims: one
asserting that certain essential expenses, such as ‘rent’, ‘food’, and ‘pension
payments’ are excluded, and another highlighting that entire groups in need are
excluded, such as ‘artists’, ‘event industries’, ‘technicians’, and ‘musicians’.4
Arguments of the latter type often portray these groups as ‘forgotten’ or
intentionally disregarded, and hence disrespected, by political decision-makers.
The claim regarding exclusion can also be connected to the criteria of reciprocity,
which concerns perceptions of how much a person or group has contributed to society
in the past or is presently contributing (Knotz et al., 2022). It is articulated as a symbolic
boundary, distinguishing small businesses and the self-employed from another group
they wish not to be associated with: the unemployed. Central to this argument is the
notion that being a contributing means being a worthy member of society.
To receive support for living expenses, many self-employed had to resort to basic
social assistance (Business Insider, 2021; Stamm et al., 2022). In the Twitter/X
debate, it is frequently asserted that this situation amounts to a devaluation of their
status in society. Frequently, people speak of ‘being forced into’ this programme,
and some depict this as the literal end of their economic and social existence. As one
person remarks, ‘I didn’t receive any Corona Assistance, I was only eligible for Hartz
IV [basic social assistance], because, as a solo self-employed person, I have low
operating costs. On one level with the scroungers. Thank you for that, dear state’. In
problematising this issue, individuals often draw a symbolic boundary that defines a

social and economic position they consider inadequate for themselves. According to
this perspective, pandemic relief measures have the potential to blur the boundaries
between those who legitimately belong to that category and those who are only
categorised as such due to the failure of the political system to adequately respond to
the crisis. Many articulate specific criteria to explain why this blurring of boundaries
is unacceptable and emphasise the importance of restoring these boundaries. As one
person remarks, ‘You’re paying #taxes as a #solo self-employed for more than
35 years and then there’s a pandemic and [a politician] offers you a lump sum
payment of up to 5000€! I feel screwed. Thanks for the alms’. Next to tax-paying, the
self-employed are also depicted as ‘contributing’, ‘hard-working’, ‘business-growing’
and ‘bread-winning’ – in contrast to typical recipients of basic social assistance.
This, of course, relies on a symbolic boundary that implies that typical recipients of
these programmes are not willing or able to work.
According to the principle of reciprocity, if small businesses and the self-employed
contribute to the economy and generate productivity, they have a moral entitlement to
receive support from the state in return. Within this debate, many express concerns
about what they regard as a violation of this principle, and therefore, a skewed
relationship with the state. The reliance on basic social assistance is seen as evidence that
political decision-makers hold them in contempt and disregard their needs.
Upon closer examination, another dimension of meaning becomes apparent in
claims informed by the principle of reciprocity. Some interpret the violation not merely
as a moral issue, but also as a legal transgression: ‘Please stop [talking]. Breach of
contract with 2 million self-employed due to the immediate assistance. Just empty
promises. Zero control over the Corona crisis. Even my pet would do a better job as
Chancellor’. The notion that the state holds a contractual obligation towards this group
and has fundamentally failed to honour it is also reflected in statements referring to the
government shutdown as a ‘work ban’ or ‘prohibition of work’5. Consequently, in
order to restore a balanced relationship, legal action against the government is
necessary: ‘The only way to object: File a lawsuit!’. This notion can be labelled a ‘logic of
redress’. Its legitimacy stems from the notion that a previous situation must be
restored, thus centreing around the reciprocity dimension of the CARIN scheme which
connects past actions with present outcomes (Knotz et al., 2022).

Criticising unequal distribution
A second salient set of claims that entails deservingness principles is articulated in the
form of comments about who receives these funds and why. These claims are closely
aligned with identity-based assertions in deservingness theory. A recurring theme in
this respect is a sense of indignation regarding the favouritism of large companies over
small businesses in pandemic state assistance. As one person writes, ‘[ : : : ] TUI
continues to receive billions, while thousands of self- employed are waiting for
#NovemberAssistance. Just my kind of humor’. Here, people often reference media
debates about pandemic assistance to major companies such as Lufthansa, TUI (a
travel industry giant), or Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (a major retailer chain). The
criticism, to be sure, has a point: A comparison of Covid-19 fiscal support in five
European countries in 2020 reveals that in Germany, a significantly larger share of
credit guarantees went to large companies than in neighbouring countries (Anderson

et al., 2021, p. 20). On the one hand, this argument centres on need, portraying large
firms as inherently privileged; on the other, it is interwoven with an identity
distinction: the assertion that large businesses benefit while small firms struggle serves
to affirm one’s identity as a small business owner.
There is also a debate about fraud in the implementation of state assistance, in
some cases, with openly racist assertions. Some highlight the alleged receipt of
pandemic state assistance by ‘Islamic clans’, ‘terrorists’, or ‘migrants’, while
portraying the self-employed (in this context, representing a nativist ‘we’) as
neglected. Portrayals that ascribe undeservingness to recipients based on their race
or ethnicity are characteristic of identity-based arguments (Van Oorschot et al.,
2017). Additionally, concerns about the inequitable distribution frequently highlight
another associated symbolic boundary: many express frustrations with the
comparatively more favourable support provided to employees through the
comprehensive German short-time work programme, while self-employed
individuals faced numerous obstacles throughout the process. Some criticise the
provision of ‘bonus payments’ to employees during the pandemic, arguing that these
funds are sourced from ‘taxes generated by the self-employed’. One columnist (Der
Spiegel, 2020) who is frequently quoted in tweets comments on this situation
sarcastically, mocking employment in Germany as a form of ‘state religion’, and
arguing that, conversely, the state ‘despises the self-employed’.

Criticising ‘excessive’ complaints by the self-employed
A small yet vocal faction in this debate chooses not to show solidarity with small
businesses and the self-employed but instead launches attacks, questioning their
demands. These arguments frequently challenge the principle of need, contending
that the self-employed are not actually excluded from state support, and that
therefore their claims are excessive and unfounded. One person remarks,
‘freelancers currently can apply for basic social assistance, even if they own more
than the Schonvermögen [the amount of wealth a Hartz 4 recipient is allowed to
keep]. The amount of rent is not considered, and it is paid. In addition, there’s up to
5,000, – New Start Assistance. They are complaining about first-world problems’.
Another person demands that the solo self-employed stop ‘crying for the state’.
Others criticise that, because the pandemic state assistance was rolled out practically
overnight, the self-employed were granted access to public resources in
indiscriminate ways. Many more mechanisms of means-testing are necessary,
these voices assert, invoking the danger of a rise in ‘zombie firms’ (businesses that
are de facto insolvent but are sustained by state subsidies). Others go one step
further even, attacking the foundations of reciprocity claims, suggesting that many
solo self-employed are ‘have-nots’ and ‘life-artists’ who never deserved state support
in the first place. This position, in fact, lumps the self-employed together with the
‘undeserving poor’ and further entrenches the critical symbolic tension between
those who are seen as contributing and those who are not that pervades this debate.
Arguments of this nature also draw upon a criticism of the perceived negative
consequences of social policy spending for the overall economy, akin to the
‘perversity thesis’ famously identified by Albert Hirschman (1991) in the
conservative critique of welfare reform. The act of dismissing someone’s (alleged)

claim of neediness is particularly powerful in this context, as it can draw upon
prevailing welfare stereotypes.
The remaining deservingness criteria – attitude and control – are notably scarce
in this debate. There are a few instances of expressions of gratitude in tweets, which
can be understood as a performative signaling of attitude. There is a notable absence
of discussions around control in terms of entrepreneurial responsibility for
economic damage. This is likely because of the prevailing view of the pandemic as an
exogenous shock, as an event whose ramifications cannot be blamed on anyone’s
actions individually.

Discussion: restoring the boundaries of worth
The small business community has been significantly impacted by the economic shock
triggered by the coronavirus pandemic (Dörr et al., 2022; Stamm et al., 2022). As of
March 2020, a large number of small business owners, self-employed individuals, and
solo entrepreneurs suddenly found themselves in need of public assistance. In this article,
I examined how these existentially important cash subsidies were evaluated in public
discourse on Twitter/X in Germany. In this country, significant state relief was provided;
while, at the same time, an institutional legacy where self-employed individuals remain
excluded from social safety net mechanisms was in place.
There is a rich and variegated social media discourse about economic relief for
businesses. Overall, it is a deeply contentious debate. Within these discussions, the
material and symbolic dimensions of pandemic relief are perceived as deeply
intertwined. People bring attention to their own or others’ situations. They share
information about the relief programmes, express criticism regarding delays and
inefficiencies, address issues of fairness in terms of inclusion and exclusion, and
respond to those who critique these measures. A particularly pronounced set of
claims is nurtured by the sense that small business and the self-employed are
effectively excluded from pandemic relief efforts – against the background of the
massive (if temporary) expansion of the German welfare state after March 2020, the
argument is that the small business community has been overlooked, and that these
ad-hoc programmes violate distributive justice norms and the obligations of the
state vis-à-vis this community. A major issue of contention in this regard is the fact
that many self-employed must, in the situation of dire economic need, resort to
basic social assistance to cover their living expenses (Stamm et al., 2022). Many –
though, to be sure, not everyone – who problematise this find that fundamental
boundaries of material and symbolic status are blurred in this situation.

Identifying deservingness criteria in process-generated data
This context offers a naturalistic setting for the study of deservingness criteria
(Theiss, 2022). The analysis has brought to light that need, reciprocity, and identity
emerge as particularly salient criteria. These three elements also interact with each
other, a point supported by recent qualitative research (Heuer & Zimmermann,
2020; Nielsen et al., 2020). In this context, the principle of reciprocity appears as the
‘most legitimate’ assertion of business identities in relation to the welfare state.
While need is also a significant factor in the debate, there is a noticeable reluctance

among the self-employed to portray themselves as ‘needy’, which indicates a
boundary issue (and, as the criticism of ‘exaggerated’ demands by the self-employed
shows, it is a vulnerable assertion). Identity criteria are intertwined with need and
reciprocity and are also relevant in critiques of the distribution of pandemic
economic relief to ‘illegitimate’ target groups, such as large businesses or foreigners.
Recent contributions to the CARIN scheme have demonstrated that reciprocity
can be further differentiated into arguments about past contributions versus those
about present contributions (Knotz et al., 2022). In this analysis, references to an
imagined past emerge as particularly important: it became evident that there are
many arguments for a moral entitlement of the self-employed to receive state
support based on their past contributions.

Redress claims as a context-specific dimension of reciprocity
The analysis laid bare an additional dimension of meaning of the reciprocity criteria that
is tied to this problem of restoring: redress, or retributive justice claim. It is succinctly
expressed in a highly popular tweet by interest group representative and entrepreneur
Catherina Bruns on June 1st, 2020. Commenting on the pandemic relief for small
businesses, Bruns asserts that ‘We need to talk about compensation – not about aid’. By
earmarking (Zelizer, 2017) state money as compensation, Bruns seeks to redefine its
symbolic purpose in order to alter the underlying social relationship that is expressed and
confirmed by the financial transaction: away from a relationship that requires those who
receive to be gratuitous and towards one that is based on a rational, legal principle of
exchange. ‘Aid’ is reserved for the ‘needy’, signalling dependency on the state.
‘Compensation’, in turn, is rooted in the idea of entrepreneurial activity – it clarifies that
the state assumes blame for a suspension of this activity and for a loss of profit and
business opportunity and thus provides a very different justification for redress – a
justification that is rooted in the principle of reciprocity, not in the principle of need. An
association with the unemployed can effectively be avoided in this way. Hence, redress
claims serve the function to mark an unambiguous position within deservingness criteria.
Arguably, this notion also activates a symbolic boundary towards the employed
workforce. A logic of classification by which the status of employees (and the
unemployed) is regarded as one of dependency, whereas that of businesses and the self-
employed as one of independence is applied here. This normative distinction, and the
symbolic boundaries that are derived from it, are threatened to be undermined in the
crisis situation.
This illustrates the importance of context in applying deservingness criteria. These
claims are anchored in a strong expectation of status preservation, a characteristic
scholars (Mau, 2004; Taylor-Gooby et al., 2020) identify as a defining feature of the
German welfare society: the argument that self-employed individuals and small
businesses should be comprehensively shielded from the pandemic’s impact is based
on a rationale of restoring status expectations. The claim responds to the cultural and
institutional norms that inform the German model, which rewards citizens according
to their contributions (based on the principle of equivalency) and is geared around
employment status (Mau, 2004). This is notable considering that these groups
traditionally hold a marginal position in the German welfare state, as evidenced by
their exclusion from unemployment assistance (Stamm et al., 2022).

These arguments are a manifestation of the contestation of worth and
recognition in a given regime of redistribution, a finding reminiscent of
Steensland’s (2006) observation that the introduction of a guaranteed annual
income in the US in the 1960s and 1970s failed primarily because the proposal was
perceived to blur boundaries of worth. This way of framing public assistance
achieves to clarify the relation between corporate actors and the state – what the
state owes to them, and what they owe to the state. Further research could elucidate
the connection between meritocratic orientations (Langsæther & Evans, 2020)
observed within the small business community and notions of redress.

Conclusion
The mixed-methods approach adopted in this study, with its emphasis on
qualitative analysis as a primary goal, has certain limitations. Working with process-
generated data is complex: it requires an open, in-depth examination of claim-
making and careful identification of deservingness criteria. The sampling is not
representative; instead, it captures segments of conversations by different groups.
However, this approach also reveals a discourse rich in statements that construct
social identity. The way people make claims, thereby shaping and performing
relational identities in digital spaces, offers valuable perspectives for social policy
research. It extends beyond the traditional boundaries of deservingness research and
introduces new, relational perspectives for study of welfare target group construction.
Supplementary material. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/
10.1017/S0047279424000096

Acknowledgments. I am grateful to Patrick Sachweh, Nikolitsa Grigoropoulou, Betina Hollstein, Rocco
Paolillo, Anna Durnová, Julia Schmid, Dagmar Vorlíček, and other colleagues at SOCIUM, University of
Bremen and at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, as well as my anonymous reviewers, for
their immensely valuable feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Competing interests. The author declares none.

Notes
1 Of those, a little more than half are solo self-employed, that is, self-employed who have no employees (see
Stamm et al., 2022, p. 4).
2 The code is available on Github: https://github.com/tillhilmar/EconomicReliefTwitter.
3 However, many statements do not fully elaborate on the material and social harm caused by the pandemic
shock. This omission may be linked to a reluctance to appear ‘needy’ (See Discussion section).
4 The first round of Emergency Assistance did not cover living expenses, in response, some federal states
instituted supplementary programmes.
5 This notion often seeks to establish a causal interpretation in which the state, not the spread of the virus, is
seen as ultimately responsible for the loss of revenue.

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Cite this article: Hilmar, T. (2025) Who deserves economic relief? Examining Twitter/X debates about
Covid-19 economic relief for small businesses and the self-employed in Germany. Journal of Social Policy 54,
1153–1169. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000096

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