Work Requirements Target the Wrong People

One of the key “cost savings” in last years’ Big, Beautiful Bill were work requirements imposed on most working aged beneficiaries in SNAP and/or Medicaid, despite the fact that the few times such requirements had been tried showed they were costly to implement and operate and don’t do much to increase work participation, although they are effective at getting beneficiaries to lose benefits. Republicans who pushed these requirements were infuriated at the thought that some able-bodied people – stereotypically young men – were sitting around on their couches playing video games while benefiting from the programs, despite those programs’ complex administrative burdens and meagre benefits.

Who is really abusing our federal tax dollar?

A new GAO report reminds us that the people coasting off SNAP and Medicaid were not so much the beneficiaries but rather employers, especially large employers. And the names of the most likely employers won’t come as a big surprise.

The report -- Federal Social Safety Net Programs: Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAP – was requested by Senator Bernie Sanders, in his role as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and is a follow-up to a similar 2020 report. It focused on 11 states: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washington.

The top-lines are that working aged beneficiaries in both programs were, in fact, not only likely to already be working—mostly full-time -- but also at participation rates higher than working aged people not on the programs, and that companies like Amazon and Walmart were among the largest employers of these beneficiaries.

The key change in employment in these populations has been the explosion of gig workers in the app-based food delivery and ride sharing sectors. Workers at Amazon on these programs also tripled since the prior report. Walmart remains the employer with the largest number of these workers who receive Medicaid, but has slipped to second to ride sharing gig workers receiving SNAP. McDonalds and Dollar General round out the top five employers.  

Now, these are among the largest employers generally, but, gosh, doesn’t it gall you that have so many of their workers who still need SNAP and/or Medicaid?  It’s not like they’re not making money, it’s not that their CEOs and other executives aren’t raking in tens of millions of dollars, but they sure are reluctant to pay federal income taxes. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that, as a result of The Big, Beautiful Bill, Amazon’s federal income taxes dropped from $9b to $1.2b in 2025, while profits soared 44.5% to $90b. Walmart looks like a sucker for paying $6b in 2025, an effective tax rate of about 23%.

An Amazon spokesperson defended its practices in a response to The Washington Post: “Amazon pay is among the best in the industry, regular full-time employees have access to health care from their first day … and 74% of our regular full-time employees are enrolled in an Amazon health insurance plan, well above the 65% private sector take-up rate for full-time workers.”

So, if all those employees have access to coverage from their first day and get among the best pay in the industry, why are any on SNAP or Medicaid?  And couldn’t you at least pay more than 1.3% on federal taxes?

Bernie, of course, was outraged:

American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon. These corporations are making record-breaking profits, paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages and spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks to enrich their wealthy shareholders. It is beyond unacceptable that these corporations, owned by some of the wealthiest people on the planet, are receiving corporate welfare from the federal government.

He pointed out that, in the 11 states, Walmart had 16,000 workers on Medicaid and 15.500 workers on SNAP, while Amazon had 11,000 workers on Medicaid and 12,000 workers on SNAP.  

And, oh-by-the-way, an analysis by the Oregon Capital Chronicle of the most listed employers ion applications for Medicaid found “that dozens of major national and multinational corporations that often pay relatively low hourly or median wages rely on the government’s health insurance program for low-income and disabled people to cover the costs of thousands of their Oregon employees’ healthcare.”  The top five employers were Walmart, Safeway/Albertsons, Amazon (and affiliates), Fred Meyer/Kroger, and McDonald’s. The articles noted that those five employers were also the top five listed employers on SNAP applications in a prior analysis.

New Jersey, for one, has had enough. It recently passed a law requiring employers to pay an annual fee per employee on Medicaid, if there are at least 50 such workers. The fee ranges from $345 to $725, based on how many employees the company has on Medicaid. The fees are expected to raise $145 million annually. The state estimates that Amazon, for example, has 5,600 workers, and 10,000 dependents, on the state’s Medicaid program, while Walmart has more than 10,000 workers and family members.

Credit: Washington Post

Similar bills have been introduced in California, Colorado, and Washington.

“Our feeling about this is that it’s time for corporations working in our communities to step up for our communities,” Alan Dubinsky, a spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union Local 49, said. “Stop gouging the state and provide healthcare for your workers. If Jeff Bezos can afford hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers, he can afford to provide healthcare for the people that built this wealth for him through their labor.”

I was around when there was active debate about “employer mandates,” requiring employers to offer health insurance for workers. The complaint from employers was always, oh, it will cost jobs, and others speculated employers would just manipulate employees’ hours to avoid them qualifying. Maybe both of those are true, but whatever sympathy I might have had for employers is diminished by their recent tax breaks and soaring executive pay. Corporations have successfully fought to be considered “people,” but they seem to only want the advantages that come with that standing, not the obligations.

I’d rather we ensure that even a few people sitting on their couches have adequate food and health care than I would that corporate executives can afford more yachts and helicopters. So, Republicans, spare me your faux outrage and focus on fairness.