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I think that's definitely a model of welfare that can be used to describe a high-trust society, but I don't think it's particularly accurate in defection-heavy, low trust societies that exist today. In the UK for example, half a million people between the ages of 16 and 24 have literally never worked (and are not in education). Their welfare payments are not insurance payouts for people who have paid in but who have fallen on hard times. They have never paid in, and they've been claiming from the day they were eligible. And of the entire working age population, a full 25% are on benefits.
I'd be fine if a had a literal insurance system of unemployment, provided by the private sector and which people had to pay premiums to receive. What we have is a simple transfer from the (shrinking) productive part of the population to the unproductive part, and we pretend it's an insurance system.
Unemployment is similar to insurance in the US. You pay in every paycheck, and get defined benefits for a defined period of time if you lose your job.
Other welfare programs are different of course where there’s no need to pay in.
But yeah you should probably leave the UK it sounds awful there for a number of reasons.
That seems like somewhat of an overreaction, like Reddit advice threads that always conclude 'you should leave your boyfriend'.
I'm not going to quit my job, abandon my family and friends, sell my house and uproot my wife and child because the unemployed welfare system is too generous. As much as we moan, the UK is still one of the richest and safest countries in the world.
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