Comment by peutetre
20 days ago
> That just makes those people unemployable, and will need food stamps even more. Nobody is going to hire people who cost more than the value they produce.
You're subsidizing those wages with your tax dollars. You're paying billions per year to make those low incomes livable. In the end it's just corporate welfare:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...
https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/a-downward-push-the-impact-...
It's not the case that they wouldn't employ people. They're not employing people now out of the goodness of their heart.
If they paid living wages (as they should) you'd pay less. Good businesses pay their costs.
But as it is, the likes of Walmart and McDonald's are privatizing their profits and socializing their costs.
> You're subsidizing those wages with your tax dollars.
Under your proposal I'd be paying even more tax dollars to those rendered unemployable.
> It's not the case that they wouldn't employ people.
People who produce less value than they cost become unemployed.
Actually, they're called by a different name. Shareholders.
So, straightforwardly, you believe Walmart operates the stores it does, employees the people it does, and has the profit it does because of taxpayer subsidies. And you're happy to take on the cost of that welfare even if you don't shop at Walmart because Walmart is so inefficient that without state subsidies it would no longer operate or employee anyone. And you must protect Walmart from its own incompetence and distort the market so Walmart doesn't have to pay its true costs and so it can survive.
You probably don't think of yourself as a socialist but socialism is what you're wholeheartedly advocating for here.
And the welfare state you're supporting the worst kind of socialism: corporate handouts for privatized profits and socialized costs.