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>It blows my mind why people blame Wal-Mart and not the folks who developed the legislation of those policies.

Because Wal-Mart has the profits to be able to afford to pay full time workers a living wage, but instead of paying a living wage to all full time employees they scoop the profits, and shift that gap to taxpayers.

I think most people agree, that if an employer has the profits to pay full time employees enough so they employees are not eligible for food stamps the employer has that obligation. Where the profits exist, businesses should be required to reimburse the government/tax payers for at least the cost of food stamps. Why should tax payers subsidize the food for employees, and their families, of public companies when the profits exist? The worst part is Wal-Mart publicly claims they can’t afford to pay their employees a living wage to the extent they won’t be eligible for food stamps...well it’s simple math walmart profits less the total amount of benefits the employees take...wow the money is there.

> I think most people agree, that if an employer has the profits to pay full time employees enough so they employees are not eligible for food stamps the employer has that obligation.

I'm not so sure that most people agree. (For example, I do not.) It seems that if most people agreed, we might be closer to a world where it was policy or law (another form of conditional minimum wage, perhaps).

Thank you, this is exactly my point.

I don't buy the concept of "living wage" but that's not even what's at issue. I just think it's folly to blame Wal-Mart employees for availing themselves of a legally available social benefit program.

I don't care where a person is politically. The private sector's job is profit maximization, not social welfare. There's this growing school of thought in the US that thinks it's the private sector's duty to "Take care of people". I'm not sure how we got it into our head that that should be the responsibility of private businesses. We have a government for that. It seems absolutely bonkers to start messing with the fundamental machinery of corporate law if the goal is social welfare. It's like seeing the thermostat is broken in the house, so we take a wrench to the engine of the car. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

>There's this growing school of thought in the US that thinks it's the private sector's duty to "Take care of people".

It would seem to me the growing school of thought is it’s the taxpayers duty to “take care of corporations”.

It’s not the taxpayers job to buy Wal-Mart employees and their families food.

How can you conclude that an employer paying its employees enough so the don’t qualify for food stamps is “social welfare”? Food stamps in and of themselves are social welfare, the fact the employees qualify become corporate welfare.

And I also don't care where a person is politically; the private sector's obligation is to not leave their employees on public assistance. The government, and by extension you and I are not there to subsidize Wal-Mart.

"I'm not sure how we got it into our head that that should be the responsibility of private businesses."

Well, why do you believe that it's our duty to subsidize labor costs for Wal-Mart?

"It's like seeing the thermostat is broken in the house, so we take a wrench to the engine of the car. It makes no sense to me whatsoever."

I'm sorry, but I absolutely cannot agree with any basis for that comparison. Why is it bonkers to tell a company, "Hey, make sure you're paying your full time employees enough so that the government does not have to pick up the slack." Especially one so big and profitable as Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has exactly no excuse whatsoever to not pay their employees enough to not need food stamps.

If you want Walmart to pay its workers more, force an increase of the minimum wage for all employers to whatever level you decide is proper and has appropriate support.

I don't believe in singling out Amazon, Walmart, or <pick a company> as being "too profitable" and thus justifying that they, and not all companies, must pay a higher minimum wage.

No one is arguing for a cap on profitability. People arguing for a change in corporate policy are simply pointing out that a non-negligible component of that profitability comes from a reliance on our shared system of social welfare.

It's a form of labor cost externalization that directly undermines a worker's purchasing power.

I know it sounds counter intuitive, but I’m not necessarily saying Walmart needs to pay its workers more, but singling our Walmart, yes, they should have to reimburse the government.

How can one not single out Walmart when more Walmart employees get food stamps than any other company, walmart directly receives $14B in revenue of this taxpayer money, and Walmart lobbies to keep these laws in place (and writes them).

The average joe minimum wage worker doesn’t have a level playing field and is less likely to successfully lobby the government to up minimum wage as Walmart is successful in lobbying to increase SNAP benefits in a given year.

It’s not a minimum wage issue it’s that Walmart is the beneficiary of taxpayer money ($14B/year) not to mention the indirect benefit of taxpayers having to subsidize the Walmart workforce (which other companies don’t necessarily receive period)

They're the beneficiary of taxpayer money primarily by selling food to SNAP recipients. Shall we layer excess taxes on businesses who take SNAP? Do you think that will make lives better for people living on the economic margins?

I don't think it's "counter intuitive" to single out a specific business for targeted policy; I rather more simply think that it's "wrong".

And I disagree. When you have one of the largest, most profitable companies giving their employees application forms for public assistance, they are the ones who are wrong, and they absolutely should be singled out and shamed for it.

Individuals and businesses/groups can be singled out any given group or person for "shame". No problem; that's free speech.

Individuals and businesses/groups ought not be targeted by governments for differential policy treatment, IMO. That's an improper use/abuse of power.

I disagree. This would be the US Government telling a shitty company that they no longer want to subsidize their shitty business practices with taxpayer dollars anymore.

Which shitty business practice? Selling food to poor people to make them less hungry? Or employing them to make them less bored, more purposeful, and to have more money than if they were unemployed?

Would you like to run a business in an environment where the government is free to single you out for differentially hostile treatment?

"Which shitty business practice? Selling food to poor people to make them less hungry?"

No one talked about that but you. You know that is not what we're talking about; we're talking about the shitty wages WalMart pays, which requires you and I to subsidize their labor costs.

"Or employing them to make them less bored, more purposeful, and to have more money than if they were unemployed?"

This is a complete non-sequitor. They are subsidizing their labor costs by not paying enough, and requiring their employees to turn to public assistance. That is shitty, and pure evil, as is anyone apologizing for that practice.

"Would you like to run a business in an environment where the government is free to single you out for differentially hostile treatment?"

I wouldn't run a business in that manner, and so I honestly do not give a flying fuck about the feelings of any business owner that would be upset at that. As far as I'm concerned, those people deserve to have their business and money confiscated from them in order to repay society for what we've had to do for them.

> No one talked about that but you.

Uh, this post (about 5 up-thread and not by me) talks about/seems to complain about the money Walmart receives for selling food to SNAP recipients:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17977792

>It seems that if most people agreed, we might be closer to a world where it was policy or law

If we lived in a democracy...we live in a Constitutional Republic, the will of the people is often ignored. Another example might be marijuana legalization, where polls clearly show a majority of people want the federal laws changed, yet here we are.

Curious how you arrive at the conclusion tax payers should have the obligation to subsidize food for the employees of publicly traded companies, where the companies have the profits to keep said employees off taxpayer funded welfare.

Sure if the profits aren’t there I understand, it’s probably better the employees eat, keep their jobs and the company stays in business...but when the profits are there?

IMO, the short-term profitability of the company is irrelevant to the market rate they pay their workers.

If they pay too little, they don't get enough workers. If they pay enough, they do. Long-term profitability / cash flow / available capital/debt all affect the corporations ability to continue to pay wages, so in that sense they set a ceiling.

In terms of the government assistance, that is largely unrelated to the employer(s). There is a government program that determines person X is eligible for assistance and person X takes advantage of that program. It is not required that corporations pay an amount such that person X becomes ineligible for the program. For all I know, the eligibility rules take into account family size, student loans, health situation, alimony, or any number of other factors that are literally not the business nor concern of the employer.

An employer hires a worker to do a job. They pay that worker, after which point, the sides are square. The fact that a worker is or is not eligible for that program represents a subsidy to that citizen. If the company fired them or they quit, they'd still be eligible for that subsidy (in most cases). It's the decision of society to support its members, and I don't accept the translation to "it's a subsidy of the employer" as being a lossless one.

Enacting rules to ensure that companies need to pay more for employees who are on/near welfare or other government programs will likely have a negative effect on hiring those very workers, most of whom are presumably in a fairly precarious situation economically.

Do you want Walmart hiring Biff and Muffy, who are not on assistance because of their family situation, rather than hiring Joe and Mary, who are each single parents trying to earn money to lead their kids out of poverty?

>n terms of the government assistance, that is largely unrelated to the employer(s). There is a government program that determines person X is eligible for assistance and person X takes advantage of that program.

Walmart bears direct responsibility for these laws, they lobby for and write them.

Food stamps, renamed SNAP, is a $70+B a year program and 20% is spent at Walmart.

Walmart public statement:

“Our business operations are subject to numerous risks, factors, and uncertainties, domestically and internationally, which are outside our control. These factors include... changes in the amount of payments made under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan and other public assistance plans, [and] changes in the eligibility requirements of public assistance plans.”

That business risk is primarily related to the fact that consumers using SNAP shop at Walmart, without regard to whether that shopper is a Walmart employee or not. If a consumer shops at Walmart using SNAP and SNAP is reduced or discontinued, that's a revenue risk for Walmart.

If the concern of a sub-thread is Walmart lobbying for self-serving programs for general consumers, I agree with that as a concern, but it's no damn different than the epi-pen people arguing to stock epi-pens in schools by policy, the AED manufacturers campaigning to have AEDs installed all around, etc. I thought this sub-thread was concerned with Walmart employees being on government support programs and that being Walmart's problem to alleviate.

Here is the copy/paste from a Kroger quarterly report, detailing some of its risks: (NB: includes “changes in government-funded benefit programs” as a risk)

Kroger's ability to achieve sales, earnings and cash flow goals may be affected by: labor negotiations or disputes; changes in the types and numbers of businesses that compete with Kroger; pricing and promotional activities of existing and new competitors, including non-traditional competitors, and the aggressiveness of that competition; Kroger's response to these actions; the state of the economy, including interest rates, the inflationary and deflationary trends in certain commodities, and the unemployment rate; the effect that fuel costs have on consumer spending; volatility of fuel margins; changes in government-funded benefit programs; manufacturing commodity costs; diesel fuel costs related to Kroger's logistics operations; trends in consumer spending; the extent to which Kroger's customers exercise caution in their purchasing in response to economic conditions; the uncertain pace of economic growth; changes in inflation or deflation in product and operating costs; stock repurchases; Kroger's ability to retain pharmacy sales from third party payors; consolidation in the healthcare industry, including pharmacy benefit managers; Kroger's ability to negotiate modifications to multi-employer pension plans; natural disasters or adverse weather conditions; the potential costs and risks associated with potential cyber-attacks or data security breaches; the success of Kroger's future growth plans; the ability to execute on Restock Kroger; and the successful integration of merged companies and new partnerships. Kroger's ability to achieve sales and earnings goals may also be affected by Kroger's ability to manage the factors identified above. Kroger's ability to execute its financial strategy may be affected by its ability to generate cash flow.

"I'm not sure why people blame Wal-Mart if their employees take food stamps"

Because that means that Wal-Mart is not paying their employees enough, which means that you and I have to subsidize them. I don't know about you, but it angers me quite a bit that one of the largest and most profitable companies in the country cannot pay its employees enough to be able to eat.

"This is really the fault of poorly-written policy."

How? How is not entirely the fault of the company that has complete control over how much they pay their employees?

"It blows my mind why people blame Wal-Mart and not the folks who developed the legislation of those policies."

Because Wal-Mart is entirely responsible for how much they pay their employees.

This is especially infuriating considering I don't buy anything at Wal-Mart, yet a portion of my tax money is still used to prop up their business model of rock-bottom prices for everyone who does shop there.

The problem is that Wal-Mart doesn't pay a living wage. Are you suggesting instead that the problem is that it's possible for people earning below a living wage to get public assistance?