Earlier this year, in June 2025, Mark Cuban took to social media to share one of his many concerns. This time, he wanted to speak on political accountability.
People who make choices that affect others should be answerable for them. If that standard isn’t enforced, nothing really changes. His posts were a reminder that responsibility is the starting point, not the finish line.
Mark Cuban Calls Out Big Employers That Pay Very Little
Mark Cuban had shared his thoughts on the matter by saying, “When a large employer pays so little that their full-time employees qualify for Medicaid, or any public assistance, we, the taxpayers, are effectively subsidising that big company. That’s wrong.”
He was calling out a pattern where some large companies pay wages so low that their workers end up relying on public support. That shifts the cost from the business to everyone else in the society and public sector.
If those companies were named and pressured to do better, public spending would drop, and workers would be better off, too.
The Line Cuban Draws Between Markets and Public Support
When someone tried to frame his comments as political, Cuban made it clear that wasn’t what he was doing. Mark said, “When did you stop understanding how capitalism and free markets work? I didn’t mention a word about policy change. If I knew which companies are costing taxpayers money, so they can make more money, I would stop doing business with them. That’s capitalism.”
Cuban has a track record of going after systems that stop serving the people inside them. His move into the healthcare space in 2022 came from the same instinct. His venture of Cost Plus Drugs strips out middlemen and lowers the costs for consumers.
Mark Cuban favors transparency over government support. From that view, wages that require public assistance aren’t market-driven.
The public is quietly helping pay that bill.
What the Numbers Say About Large Employers
Although Mark did not name any companies in his tweet on X, the Grok-AI wasn’t as generous. Using already available information, Grok filled some of the blanks by naming companies that often appear in public benefit data.
The list included names like Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walgreens, CVS, and Uber.
These are some of the most visible employers in the U.S. In many states, they’re also among the largest sources of workers relying on Medicaid and food aid.
When Profits and Paychecks Don’t Match
A federal watchdog reported that Walmart and McDonald’s ranked near the top for employing Medicaid recipients in several states by 2020.
More recent state figures point to Amazon leading in Nevada. In other states, Walmart, Publix, and McDonald’s still appear often. Across all of them, the pattern looks the same. Full-time work does not always cover the cost of living.
That same philosophy carries into other areas where Cuban believes market forces should work transparently.
According to federal and state health budget reports, Medicaid enrollment fell about 7.6 percent in fiscal 2025. Yet spending increased by 8.6 percent. This left the states responsible for more than before. Lawmakers in Congress are talking about trimming as much as a trillion dollars from the budget over the next decade.
Cuban is steering the conversation in a different direction. He wants attention on profitable companies that pay hefty dividends while still relying on a large workforce earning too little to get by without public support.
Why Mark Cuban Says Consumers Should Rethink Who They Support
Mark Cuban is asking why anyone would keep backing firms that shift part of their payroll onto public aid. His message wasn’t anti-success. It was about exposing a setup where low wages drive profits and are rebranded as efficiency. Would public support change if people saw how these profits were built?
Cuban had already made his position clear. He said he would walk away from those companies. Whether consumers act on that belief remains to be seen, but Cuban is pushing the responsibility conversation into the public spotlight.
