One of the questions that guides this study is if, when a basic income is introduced, people are going to invest less time in paid and unpaid work. Further, we discuss peoples’ preferences concerning different redistribution schemes in the context of the German welfare state. Based on Fröhlich and Oppenheimer (1990), we designed an experiment to find out if these preferences vary when peoples’ positions in society are unknown. One scheme is a stylized representation of the actual German welfare state, i.e. with a means-tested minimal income and relatively progressive income tax system. The next scheme represents a situation where there is no redistribution and functions as a control. The last depicts a scenario where there is an unconditional basic income financed by a flat income tax. The experiment was designed aiming the discussion of two issues. The first concerns the hypothetical effects of the introduction of a basic income on people’s paid and unpaid work supply decisions. And the second is about the participant’s preferences concerning redistribution schemes and the influences of a constructed veil of ignorance on these preferences. This veil of ignorance enables the simulation of a situation under which the participants are not aware of their social positions, which are represented in the experiment by hourly wages and distributional schemes. Among the objectives of this experiment is the contribution to the further development of lab experiments on basic income and to the discussion on possible reforms for the German welfare state.