Lesson learned over oranges put me in a pickle

By Ivan Morgan

When I was growing up my parents – and the parents of many of my friends – had a saying for us if we were lazy, or not doing well in school.
“The world does not owe you a living.”
What they meant was we would have to find our own way in the world – that there was no guarantee of success, happiness, or comfort. We would have to work for it. We had to earn it.
That was ingrained in me from infancy.
Yet we Canadians decided over the years to watch each other’s back. Medicare was supposed to ensure we all got good health care. Welfare and Unemployment Insurance (as they were once called) made sure we all had a safety net if we fell on hard times. You still, however, had to work to live.
The road to hell, unfortunately, is paved with good intentions. Today, these programs are a mess. Medicare? Do not get me started. Income Support and Employment Insurance (as they are now known) have become bureaucratic nightmares. Poverty reduction has become a full-fledged industry, with well paid poverty experts guiding policy.
That’s why I have always been interested in the idea of the Universal Basic Income (UBI). I have written about it in this space before. Should the world owe us all a living?
The idea of a UBI is that everyone is guaranteed a basic yearly income (I have seen the sum of $16,000 tossed around, $24,000 for a family). That’s your basic income. Whatever you make on top of that UBI is your own. All disincentives to working would be removed. Gone too are all the provincial and federal government anti-poverty and other income programs. If you blow your basic income, then and only then do you become a candidate for a social worker. For most people it would be a buffer against homelessness and hunger. The idea is most people don’t need programs to lift themselves out of poverty, they need cash.
As a policy it’s a strange beast. It’s a socialist policy the left hates and the right loves. Public service unions, who fund the left, hate this idea as we would need far fewer bureaucrats. Conservatives, who fund the right, love the idea as it means smaller government and more personal freedom.
Of course, it’s more complicated than this but you get the idea. My folks would have thought it was a barmy notion.
It’s been a theory, an idea, I have been interested in for decades. During the Covid pandemic we had a little real-life experiment with this idea. With no one knowing where the pandemic was going, the federal government hastily arranged a $2,000 a month payment for folks who needed it (which was many people). It kept the economy afloat, and people, for the most part, safe.
What have we learned? Who knows? It’s still too early to tell, folks are still studying it.
I cornered an esteemed retired economics professor in the supermarket to see what his take was on this. Poor fellow was minding his own business picking through oranges when I confronted him. I asked him what he thought about the pandemic payments as a test UBI. (Never mind I’m a grandfather – at that moment I was a wide-eyed sophomore.) What he said was fascinating. He said he was impressed how corporations (he shook an overpriced orange at me for emphasis) moved so quickly to get their share of this “free” money. This was his take on soaring prices. “Free” money fuels inflation.
This guy is no slouch – retired perhaps but brilliant all the same. I have no idea if he’s right, but it was certainly an interesting observation. Something I hadn’t thought of.
After a lifetime of reading about and promoting the idea, is this the actual outcome? A guaranteed social safety net for all means more corporate profit-taking?
It’s been a bit of a bucket of cold water on my enthusiasm for a UBI.
Loblaw’s quarterly profit was $459 million this quarter, marking a 9.8 per cent increase in their already record-breaking profits. Their shareholders are very happy.
The world may not owe you and I a living, but if we owned shares in Loblaws…
Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com