For some people. For others, it ruins their lives. And those of their families. Failure can mean starvation, yes, even in the West; it can mean a collapse into addiction; or it can mean suicide.
Interestingly, I was about to make a related (?) comment, that I think it's important to think hard about the effect it has on some people that they are "provided for fully" by the government.
The people that I've met who have gotten addicted to drugs, and even committed suicide, were actually those on the dole.
Not sure why.
If the government lets people stay at home and "engage in addictive behavior" (which we humans tend to do) sometimes they degenerate to harder and harder stuff, and even suicide. They're not happy. Are we doing this people a service?
What's the alternative to "letting" people stay at home? Jail?
Yes, feelings of uselessness are harmful to people. But the current approach of cutting off people's food, heat and accomodation in an effort to force them to find work somehow is worse. It's possible that "workfare" might be better - but in practice it ends up almost instantly corrupted into a system for giving free or below-minimum-wage labour to businesses while still not providing enough to live on, and usually failing to accomodate the needs of people with disabilities and mental health conditions.
(MH issues are a very strong predictor of unemployment, addiction and suicide, by the way)
And we've also not considered the question of single parents who can often find that employment has marginal or negative returns after childcare and commuting costs.
I don't know what the right answer is. I'm just really afraid that if you toss "some people" 1.5K/month, that they don't have to earn, they may use it to buy drugs and then where are we?
