[jobu]

It's a combination of weak social safety net and people living paycheck-to-paycheck (or worse). Roughly 1/3 of US households have a hard time covering monthly expenses, and another ~1/3 are a paycheck away from disaster.

If you lose a job in the US, you lose your healthcare (COBRA is way to expensive to be an option). Minimal housing protections in most states means you're one missed payment away from homelessness. Food banks are critically short-staffed and under-stocked across the US. Jobless benefits can take weeks or months to receive and even then they're usually well below what a person needs to survive.

There was such a stigma against moochers and "welfare queens" in the 80s and 90s that politicians would rather cut funding to all benefits than let one person abuse the system. Florida even spent $178 million on drug tests to save from paying out $60k in welfare because addicts don't deserve to eat for some reason.