Guaranteed Annual Income and Obesity

When I indulge in an Egg McMuffin, I toss half the muffin. In my case, it is better wasted than waisted. What about a student from a food insecure family? They eat to stop the pain of hunger. If hunger remains, they will be consumed by thoughts of food and unable to focus on schoolwork.

In one decade, the price of whole food rose by 40%. The price of processed food? It dropped by 40%.

From A Place at the Table (2012)

Big Food’s mantra is processed food is fine if you have a balanced diet. The 2016 Senate “Obesity in Canada” report states, “low-income Canadians are often restricted to the foods that are available and that they can best afford, which are generally speaking, the least healthy.”

To stop hunger, parents stretch food dollars. Oodles of noodles, hollow cereals, and fibreless juices is an unbalanced diet. In urban food deserts and remote communities, whole food is beyond stretch and/or unavailable.

Processed food is calorie-rich and nutrient-poor making us and our children overweight and ironically, undernourished. Whole food is calorie-poor and nutrient-rich plus it has elements that tell our brain to stop eating.

Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) increase the amount of whole foods low-income families could buy? Especially for expectant mothers who set baby’s taste buds? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.

Guaranteed Annual Income and School Readiness

In Robert Munsch’s Murmel, Murmel, Murmel, Robin finds a baby in her sandbox. Declaring she is too young to take care of a baby, she searches for an adult. Her skills, knowledge, and attitude prove five-year-old Robin is school ready.

School readiness is different from academic readiness. To succeed academically (and in life), children need self-regulation, executive functions, and social-emotional skills. These abilities are wired in by parental attention. In Canada, one out of four children fail school readiness tests. (The failure rate is higher for Indigenous children—another criminal legacy of the residential school system.)

Imagine Robin found parents stressed by poverty. Our baby is less likely to develop school readiness. Economist Ha-Joon Chang recognizes children need more than “minimum nutrition and parental attention.” Dr. Gabor Maté appreciates “the parent’s brain programs the infant’s, and this is why stressed parents will often rear children whose stress apparatus also runs in high gear, no matter how much they love their child and no matter that they strive to do their best.”

Maté proves every baby needs parenting from a “reliably available, protective, psychologically present and reasonably non-stressed adult.” Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) increase the likelihood that parents would be non-stressed and better able to wire in school readiness? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.

Guarantee Annual Income and Parenting Altruism

"Negative income" is an oxymoron—a phrase that combines contradictory ideas. Does "philanthropic millionaire" qualify as an oxymoron? Author John Steinbeck thought so. He wrote, "One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back." He then added "giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice."

While millionaire and billionaire philanthropists may feel a sense of superiority, researchers have found giving, or altruism, is hard-wired into the brain and produces a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is a universal human need.

We have crushing proof that tax loopholes, limited liability, financial (de)regulations, outsourcing, and automation are powerful claws.  They are gutting the 99% of us and the environment.

The Latin origins of “parent” means “bringing forth.” We need to parent the idea that we can skip the wolfishly clawing of fortunes and go straight to altruism. By cultivating empathy in ourselves, others, and especially our children, we can declaw wolfish corporations and individuals.

Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) reduce the need for philanthropic zillionaires? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.