I'm sure this wouldn't go down well but here goes; why don't you pay your employees a living wage?
Why would anyone working for you on anywhere close to a full time basis have to file for food stamps or temporary unemployment in order to eat?
If, as your president said, you don't consider yourself in anyway like Walmart why do you use there the same techniques they do for keeping wages as low as possible and the employees from organizing?
What to do about the working poor and how to encourage people to get off a cycle of poverty and dependency, is a key part of welfare reform. One that was only really addressed decisively in the Clinton Administration under W2 or "Workfare", though certainly presidents since at least Nixon have tried (and often villified with false accusations of attempting to "enslave" the poor). Target, IMHO, isn't the enemy here, and arguably is a key ally in this effort.
There is a "wall" or "gap" in standard of living where the lowest rungs of the employment ladder do not pay as much in cash and benefits as just simply staying on the dole and not working. Recognizing that idle hands are the devil's workshop, welfare reform pragmatically approaches this problem by requiring able-bodied recipients of assistance to work at something, somewhere, but then the government will step up with subsidies (SNAP benefits, Section 8 housing, Medicaid) to bring those workers up to a minimum standard of living. These recipients of assistance will get work experience, become reliable employees and contributing citizens, and serve as positive role models to their children to avoid repeating their mistakes, hopefully breaking the cycle of poverty.
It may be that a given worker on assistance may just not be able to contribute (at least at first) enough economic value to their employer, and to society, due to problems like poor education, poor reliability/work ethic, spotty work history, recovering from past substance abuse/addictions, criminal records, etc., to make a "living wage." If you ask many of these working poor, a lot of them will acknowledge these setbacks in their lives, many of them within their control. Looking at only one side of the problem by trying to force a "living wage" on employers may just price these workers out of the market. Subsidies may be less than ideal, but at least allows workers to be able to work at entry-level wages that encourage employers to take a chance on them. Working at Target may be a shallow step up, but could be one of many steps up in people's lives. What if that step wasn't there at all?
Some European countries have chosen to deal with this issue by simply creating and maintaining permanent unemployed subclasses of people on what amounts to a permanent dole. That's really not a good solution, either, and is arguably far worse (see "devil's workshop" comment above). I'm also reminded of a quote from the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher, who said that, "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
Is Target, and other employers, doing a bad thing by taking a chance with these entry-level workers, with the assistance of government subsidies oriented towards encouraging self-reliance and thus providing a helping hand up?
Executive compensation is an issue, and in some cases is arguably excessive, but is mostly a distractive side-show on the specific subject of how to best help the working poor because 1.) Much of a CEO's compensation is deferred compensation (stock options, etc.) that is tied to the performance of the company, which was actually a key shareholder reform to hold CEO's accountable, and hence may vary greatly from year to year (so saying that the CEO got an "XX% raise" over last year is misleading). and 2.) If you took the CEO's pay and distributed it equally over all employees, they might each get a $500 raise (big whoop). Yeah, $500 isn't chicken feed, but what benefits society, employees, and the economy greater: giving each person $500, or paying competitive compensation to business leaders who can run successful businesses that employ many people and provide much more than $500 of benefit per person?
