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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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.

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