Exclude low-pay employers from accepting food stamps

How food stamps suppress retail wages:

The presidential election has helped fuel a national debate on raising the minimum wage. While this movement may succeed in some cities and states, a change to the national minimum wage is unlikely given the present make-up of Congress.

However, a small change in the federal food stamp policy can serve to significantly raise the minimum wage for a huge number of retail employees.

For example, Walmart, the nation's largest retail employer, pays many of its employees so little that they must rely on food stamps to feed their families. This turns out to be a highly profitable policy for Walmart, at taxpayer expense.

Where do the majority of these underpaid employees spend their food stamps? You guessed it: Walmart. In effect, food stamps serve as a form of corporate welfare for retailers like Walmart.

The federal government administratively sets the standards for which retailers may accept food stamps as payment. If a retailer pays their employees so little they require food assistance, that retailer should be disqualified from being allowed to accept food stamps. Retailers should also be excluded from qualifying to accept food stamps if their ratio of part-time to full-full time employees is too high.

It seems like this is a policy change that Obama could adopt with the stroke of a pen.

Pavlo Bobrek

Bradenton

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Exclude low-pay employers from accepting food stamps ."