Walmart pays a minimum of $11 an hour. It's impossible to be on benefits making $11 hour full time unless you are a single mother or disabled. If you tax companies extra for each employee on public benefits, they'll just stop hiring single mothers and disabled people. What kind of society is that where short sighted government policies force the disabled and single mothers into a life poverty?

Someone making $11 is better off than someone making $0 an hour. They also have a path toward higher earrings, where a person that is unemployed does not.

I'm arguing that enacting policies that force people into a life where it is impossible to find employment is a bad thing.

Straw man. Minimum wage doesn't "force" people into unemployment. No meaningful increases in unemployment have occurred as a consequence of raising the minimum wage.

> Walmart's margins are low, but their employees aren't in great shape. They usually live off of state benefits

Even if this is true, benefits + low-wage job is better both for the worker and society than a lesser total entirely from public benefits and no job, so, the WalMart jobs are a net win.

> presumably have worse education

Hence why they can't get better jobs, but punishing WalMart doesn't fix that.

> and health outcomes than the average American.

Probably, that comes from being poor and is exacerbated by a wealth-dependent healthcare system. Again, punishing WalMart for employing them doesn't improve this.

You have excluded the category 'living wage job + social safety net', a system that seems to work in many countries.

Would Walmart go backrupt or employ noticeably fewer people if wages and taxes were higher? I don't think so, as similar companies exist in many economies with better wages. Is it inflationary? Only if the wages grow disproportionally with the economy (like costs have in health care). Basically richer people are effectively charged more for their shopping, and shareholders see less profit.

People employed at below cost of living wages (reliant on welfare for basics) by definition can't save much, and in the US are excluded from education and quality health care. I couldn't be happy with a system that perpetuates that just to get groceries 1% cheaper.