If the activists succeed in their quest to transfer these health-care costs to Walmart, they’ll be striking yet another blow against the poor. When low-income workers receive subsidized health insurance through Medicaid, the money comes out of general tax revenue—paid mainly by upper-income taxpayers. If Walmart becomes responsible for paying for its own subsidies, the company might offset the expense by reducing its workers’ cash wages. Or it might raise prices, which would effectively be a new regressive tax hitting its low-income customers hardest. Either way, the burden would shift from affluent taxpayers to the working poor.
These Robin Hood-in-reverse effects prompted Furman to reject his fellow Democrats’ campaign against Walmart. “The collateral damage,” Furman wrote, “from these efforts to get Walmart to raise its wages and benefits is way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing ‘Kum-Ba-Ya’ in the interests of progressive harmony. Not to mention the collateral damage to rational thought from many of the arguments made by the anti-Walmart community.”
De Blasio and the city council keep spouting these irrational arguments, but they haven’t persuaded the public. In a 2015 Quinnipiac poll asking whether Walmart stores should be allowed to open, New Yorkers favored Walmart by a margin of 2-to-1. Overall, 63 percent of New Yorkers wanted Walmart stores in the city, with virtually no difference in favor of the big-box emporium between those living in union and non-union households. Support was higher among blacks, who favored Walmart by 66 to 30, and among Hispanics, who favored Walmart by 71 to 27.
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