[twoodfin]

I don't get this "subsidy" argument. Bob pays $200 for his rent, and $150 for groceries. He applied for a job at Costco and was turned down, but Walmart offered him a job so he took it.

Without government benefits, he couldn't afford his rent and he couldn't afford his groceries. Without his job at Walmart, he'd be eligible for even more benefits. But somehow it's Walmart that's being subsidized, and not his grocer or his landlord? Not to mention Costco, who's paying him $0, while Walmart pays him something, at least.

[some_guy_there]

> Without his job at Walmart, he'd be eligible for even more benefits

This is false. The biggest government benefit that someone employed at Walmart gets is the EITC, the _Earned_ income tax credit. For a person earning 20k with family of 4, the EITC would be near 5k, or a quarter of the salary. If the person was not working, the government (usually) does not pays anyone 25k for non working. Moreover, without the $5k EITC, it would not be economically feasible for this person to work at Walmart, and Walmart would have to simply pay its worker more to at least find people who can eat enough. The government is absolutely subsidizing Walmart in tune of $3-4k per worker.

[yummyfajitas]

False. A person with less than $5k in earnings has consumption of nearly $23k/year.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt

Also, the threshold for "find people who can eat enough" is far below $25k (proof: Mexicans eat enough with a GDP/capita of $16k, and Mexico is a fairly rich nation).

[iopq]

if not for government programs, nobody would work at Walmart they would literally not be able to afford to work there, so they wouldn't even accept the job if offered because it wouldn't pay their expenses since the opportunity cost would be too great

a few retirees or people living with parents would work there, but not enough to fill out their work force this is because wages for unskilled labor tend to approach the minimum you have to pay for people to live and since the government is footing the bill to reduce that minimum to very little, Walmart can get away with paying very little

if government decided to take away all benefits for people currently employed, Walmart would have to raise their wages because the workers would quit in droves to sit on welfare instead

[yummyfajitas]

if not for government programs, nobody would work at Walmart...they wouldn't even accept the job if offered...opportunity cost would be too great

Could you explain, ideally by using numbers (either real or example) to illustrate your argument? Something along the lines of:

No government subsidies, no job at walmart: earnings + unearned income = $x

No govt subsidies, job at walmart: earnings + unearned income = $y

etc.

[twoodfin]

Again, if not for government programs Bob could not afford the groceries he buys. Shouldn't you be demanding that every grocery store that accepts food stamps lower their prices because they're being "subsidized"?

And if Walmart is relying on under-paying what its employees are worth, why don't those employees find jobs elsewhere? At worst, it's the government's fault for incentivizing them not to with benefits that drop off faster than their earnings grow.