[sokoloff]

> Nobody is upset that Wal-Mart sells food to SNAP beneficiaries.

Literally the post to which I replied complained about "simultaneously are the beneficiary of 20% (or $14B) in taxpayer funded food stamps annually there is a problem". It seems that someone is upset about that.

[s73v3r_]

No. They are benefitting because they are having their labor subsidized by taxpayers because they don't pay enough.

Again, pretending the reason people are upset is because they're selling food, and not because Wal-Mart is requiring you and I to subsidize their labor costs, is incredibly dishonest.

[dragonwriter]

> They are benefitting because they are having their labor subsidized by taxpayers because they don't pay enough.

That's not a labor subsidy, and if it was the simple fix would be to make employed people categorically ineligible for federal benefits—we don't do that, because we know it's not a wage subsidy, and all the hyperventilating about it being a wage subsidy is (at least on the part of public officials and other people that know anything about policy) dishonest grandstanding.

(Now, work requirements in benefit programs do make them wage subsidies, because then the threat is “work at whatever job will have you or lose public benefits in addition to the marginal benefit of pay”; that's easily solved by removing such requirements.)

[s73v3r_]

It is a labor subsidy, because Wal-Mart is not having to pay their workers a living wage because they can simply tell their workers to sign up for public assistance. I don't care about the nit-picky "Is it a direct labor subsidy or is it a wage subsidy" arguments; Wal-Mart benefits because they can pay lower wages and tell their employees to get public assistance. That's the story in its entirety. Wal-Mart is big enough, they can pay a living wage; they don't need my help.

[dragonwriter]

> It is a labor subsidy,

No, it's not, it's an anti-subsidy, because money is taken away from workers for getting paid by an employer, increasing the amount an employer needs to pay.

> because Wal-Mart is not having to pay their workers a living wage

WalMart wouldn't have to pay a living wage without it, either. Public assistance programs (aside from work requirements and the cost of lost benefits from failure to comply) actually increase market clearing wages, they don't decrease them.

> because they can simply tell their workers to sign up for public assistance

The people involved can sign up for public assistance with or without working for WalMart; further, they lose benefits due to mean testing based on outside income, which means WalMart has to give them >$1 of take home pay to get labor they would be willing to trade for $1 of net income increase.

[ddingus]

Look at the root cause of why. Parent comment nailed it.