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DannyB chased by a bunch of wild rabid kangaroos writes . . .
Bernie Sanders introduces 'Stop BEZOS' bill to tax Amazon for underpaying workers
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) have introduced a bill that would tax companies like Amazon and Walmart for the cost of employees' food stamps and other public assistance. Sanders' Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act (abbreviated "Stop BEZOS") . . . would institute a 100 percent tax on government benefits that are granted to workers at large companies.
The bill's text characterizes this as a "corporate welfare tax," and it would apply to corporations with 500 or more employees. If workers are receiving government aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), national school lunch and breakfast programs, Section 8 housing subsidies, or Medicaid, employers will be taxed for the total cost of those benefits. The bill applies to full-time and part-time employees, as well as independent contractors that are de facto company employees.
Sanders announced his plans for the proposal last month. He emphasized today that "this discussion is not just about Amazon and [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos." But as the bill's name would suggest, he's been particularly critical of Amazon and Bezos who became the richest person in the world (and modern history) last year. "The taxpayers in this country should not be subsidizing a guy who's worth $150 billion, whose wealth is increasing by $260 million every single day," [ . . . rest omitted . . . ]
Food stamps, School Lunch, Medicaid, great . . . but what about employees who must shop at Walmart?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:49AM (1 child)
The situation you describe is still better than what we have now, because today Zon Mart has the same broken incentive structure and they cover even less of the cost. They pay Harry the minimum amount they can get away with, and taxpayers cover the rest.
A perfect fix to the situation is just too complicated to be practical. You could try to tax Zon Mark an amount equivalent to S + F + all relevant federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax that the S + F increases would cause. Then it would be genuinely cost-neutral to pay the employee vs paying the tax. But how would you track all of that data? Audit every employee at every store and track the benefits they would receive? It would never work.
I propose a simpler protocol. For most of the history of minimum wage its purchasing power was equivalent to $10 per hour today, roughly. Set the minimum wage at $10 per hour, plus $0.05 per number of employees at the company, capped at $15 per hour.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:31AM
I am not saying that setting the tax at >= S+F+ΔP is a good idea, but it's a much less bad idea than taxing at S+F.
From the other direction, I imagine, by adding a question or two to the application forms of the programs in question. (Who is your employer? About how many employees have they?) Again I don't think that's a good idea, but it's a much less bad one than tracking every employee at the zillion largest employers and then chase down what benefits they receive if any.