Something that I’d like to see is a “food stamp tax” imposed on any company whose workers claim food stamps. I read that for example, Walmart receives 18% of the total food stamp spend in the USA, and that WalMart employees receive $300M in foodstamps from the US Government. WalMart receives $14B of food stamps a year, and it has $17B “profits” once you factor out share buybacks and other vehicles that allow the extra profit to be disguised as capital gains rather than direct payments to investors. Why should WalMart be granted a wage supplement from the Federal government? The gross income of WalMart is over $100B, so adding $300M to the salaries of it’s workers would correspond to a 0.3% price rise on all products they sell - surely not enough to influence the shopping habits of their customers. The US government should create a ‘poverty tax’ or ‘inequality tax’ whereby if any employer has someone on the pay roll who claims food stamps, that company is taxed at say, 5 times the value of the food stamps claimed by their employees. That would create a financial incentive to pay a living wage to the staff wherever possible, without imposing by law a minimum wage. I’ve got no problem with people becoming rich, until it comes at the expense of holding other people in poverty. The difference between $17B profits and $16.7B profits is not significant to the people at the top of the organisation, whereas the difference between struggling to feed your family and being able to exist with dignity is important. The original rationale for the USA to exist was to provide a better alternative than autocratic rule, by providing freedom of opportunity; whereas in fact to have opportunity in the USA one also needs capital.
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