This rhetoric seems to appeal to people but the policy is completely incoherent and likely to make things worse.

First off, if you’re getting means-tested benefits while working a full time job, it’s probably because you have children that raise your eligibility threshold. So this is basically a big “don’t hire parents” incentive for companies.

Say a company does not follow that incentive and hires parents who happen to receive Medicaid. Suddenly the company is no longer eligible for tax credits. But why would our desire for companies to, say, make green investments, hinge on that??

And the crazy thing is, if you want to make a company pay a certain amount in wages, we have a tool for that: minimum wage. You can just write down the number, you don’t have to build a Rube Goldberg machine. And if you feel you’ve maxed out on MW, just boost those benefits. EZ!

I think a lot of people conceive of something like food stamps as allowing employers to lower wages (because employees can survive on less) when really they raise wages (because employees can survive without the boss).

The real low-wage-employer subsidy is work requirements. If you remove the ability to survive without the boss, then you lower bargaining power and wages (though this analysis is complicated by work requirements not actually raising labor force participation)

With healthcare, it is funky to have some employers mandated to provide coverage and some getting around it with hours restrictions or firm size exemptions - I’d much prefer to strengthen the mandate while also offering a low cost Medicaid buy-in that employers could choose.

This would be a nice path towards single payer, but under Slotkin’s proposed policy it would also destroy the federal tax code.