She has no kids to help her... Why didn't she save up throughout her career? Because

Now this may be an unpopular opinion, but while this clearly indicates the faults of the government, to live in that situation and understand it is not generous, and yet not prepare for it is on the part of the individual.
This could've been worded better but I am smol brain rn

In an economy where you need three jobs to pay rent, how do you save up? Now there are 40 Million people without a job, how do they save up?
Telling people they shouldn't rely on help and in the same time not providing an environment in which the majority can't help themselves is pretty sarcastic. But I guess as long as you have food on the table, who cares about the people living down the street, huh? Because they all had the same starting perimeters in the mind of those, who have a home and enough to feed their families? They didn't.

You don't need three jobs to pay rent.

If the majority of the population could not afford to live, then the death toll would collapse the whole shabang

Before this pandemic hit, the middle class was shrinking. As was the working class. Take home money was up across the board, and people and companies has confidence shooting up. I hope we can get back on track. Nothing wrong with the richest shooting up faster than the poorest of the poorest are also doing better and better.

F_kyeahhamburg isn’t wrong. Many people cannot afford basic things, or need to work multiple jobs to do it. Even in America- most people live “paycheck to paycheck” without any real savings should things go bad. This is all true- but creativedragonbaby spoke well when saying that such a failure isn’t on the government alone.

For now- Let’s ignore the people on the streets or the people who are legitimately working their lives away to make ends barely meet. Let’s look at the majority of people- people without savings, who are tight on money but doing “ok”- have food and shelter and some distractions and luxuries.

If you have a house, you could have a smaller house. If you rent an apartment, you could rent a room or have roommates. There are a million ways we can “downsize” our lives. The truth is that MOST people aren’t living on or like they are on the raggedy edge of poverty. Most of us have more than we need and do t even realize what we have because we are so used to it being there.

Most of us COULD cut back on other things and have savings, take steps to make sure we are taken care of if things go badly. Those people who CAN’T- the ones who literally cannot do more or live with less (or it would be insane to ask them to), they need help. The government needs to be able to prop them up and get them back on their feet. It also needs to “catch” people who had more, but not enough. Maybe you had savings for a year, but between losing a job and unexpected disaster expenses you couldn’t have and really shouldn’t be expected to predict- you are in trouble.

The baseline of social welfare is a system that provides for people who cannot provide for themselves, and the priority should be to those who did what THEY as an individual were able to and could be expected to based on their place in society and intellect as an individual- to prevent or mitigate it; as well as to those who for whatever reason would be incapable to do so- “powerless” or without ability.

But the well minded and intelligent individual has a responsibility in their lives. When and where society can- it serves human decency but also prosperity to try to help those without to get footing and become “productive” economically. Consuming and producing goods and labor. We should try to help everyone in every way- but there is practically only so much help to go around.

So what IS available must be given out based on a system like triage. But it is destructive to the individual and the state to assume the state- that really anyone but you- will take care of you. You are alone in the wilderness. Anything you find as aid is welcome relief- but you must never count on anyone but yourself to be the one who will be responsible for your survival. If you must ration food and be hungry but nutritionally well, to make sure that should a boar eat all the berries you rely on, or that the salmon won’t be biting tomorrow- then you must.