Hats Off To This Guy

[Hatshepsut]

The only reason some are paid less is because the government subsidizes certain labor costs with food stamps. But for that, no one would work for so little.

Observations do not support your claim.  Food Stamp use is at an all time high and labor participation is way way way down.  If your claim that food stamps allow companies to get away with paying lower wages is true, then we would expect that as food stamp subsidises increase so does labor participation.

The BLS figure on labor force participation is around 63% now, versus 67% in 1999, 66% in 1991, and 61% in 1975. So, I'm not too sure about that way, way, way down. Instead, there was a rise from around 55% in the late 1950s to a peak in the decade of the 1990s, then a smaller decline to now. The rise in the early years was almost certainly due to women entering the workforce in large numbers. Reasons for the more recent decline are less clear but I doubt it is closely tied to food stamps.

For one thing, labor force participation began declining around 2000 when food stamp and welfare benefits were also declining, a trend that had started just before the 1996 PRWORA welfare reform law was passed, the one that set time limits on most forms of public assistance. Food stamps, and for mothers, cash welfare, are distributed per household and not per person. This is important because it means a working spouse can't quit a job simply to collect food stamps while the other spouse keeps the rent paid. Both spouses would have to be underemployed to qualify. They could then lose their housing if unable to make rent. People who don't have children are limited to 3 months on food stamps in any 3-year period. So, disdaining work in favor of getting food stamps isn't a viable strategy even for those who would prefer doing that.

With the onset of recession in 2008, food stamp payments rose again, especially under temporary provisions the Obama Administration enacted in 2009. Payouts reached a high near $75 billion in 2012 and have started to go back down.

On the other hand, it is true that labor force participation would likely go up if food stamps were effectively subsidizing the labor market. Therefore, they are not. This means employers wouldn't pay any better if food stamps were done away with.

*see BLS labor force participation calculator at
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000