For decades the U.S. has used wage subsidies to support the country’s lowest-paid workers—a welfare system that keeps the poor down, primarily benefits the wealthy and undermines technological innovation.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-pays-a-high-price-for-low-wages-d706894d?mod=hp_lead_pos11
intercst
Can’t read it. Pay wall. I remember some years back Walmart was bragging publicly that their workers were actually living better than their paltry Walmart wages suggested because they qualified for food stamps, Medicaid, and various other subsidies because they were paid so little. If they were paid more many would lose these subsidies and end up living in poverty.
Some articles I read said Walmart managers openly told their employees to apply for welfare benefits, while they worked, because they qualified, and the “JC” avoided the cost of paying them enough to live.
Steve
That is probably the actual story I was remembering. They didn’t do it publicly, just to their employees. But the story eventually got out.
Hmmmm… and some in Washington are wanting a “work requirement” for Welfare. Hmmmm…
iirc, there is a maximum amount of time a person can be on welfare, before they are required to find a job, one of the late 90s “reforms”. The current push is to shorten that time horizon.
The previous administration was promoting a pilot program to impose a work requirement for Medicaid. Of course the (L&Ses) in Lansing jumped on board, and openly admitted they supported it to force more people to take the lousy jobs at lousy pay, that the “JCs” could not fill. Someone filed suit and a court blocked implementation of the scheme.
I’m not sure how that would work with the ACA, Aren’t employers of Walmart’s size required to provide group medical? If there is a loophole, like a minimum number of hours worked, to qualify for the medical, the “JCs” would certainly have an incentive to keep worker’s hours below that cutoff, and tell them to sign up for Medicaid. Save the “JCs” a ton of money that way.
Of course, if medical insurance was separated from employment, like a national health plan, that would eliminate the incentives for “JCs” to restrict worker hours, to duck the cost of medical…but a national health program is “socialistical”, so won’t happen.
Steve
They need to get “real” jobs, not freeload on the public dime.
It is a generational divide. Older voters vote. Speaking of retirees…the club house tonight was full of them. The number one topic young people do not work.
Oh brother
IIRC, some senator from Delaware supported something like that back in the '90s.
DB2