[PhileasNietzche]

There's nothing outstanding about repeatedly handing out thousands of dollars to every taxpayer and increasing unemployment because all the gig economy workers were upset that there was no more gig economy for a few weeks. Just like every time our government bails out organisations like GM, none of that money did any lasting good for the economy and simply served to increase the entitlement rampant among US citizens. Imagine a place where people who deliver disgustingly unhealthy takeout to a population where the majority of morbidity and mortality is directly related to chronically poor lifestyle choices are called "essential." Thanks to all that "stimulus," there is no small number of people who hardly worked the entirety of 2020, if at all.

"I know you took this job because there wasn't really an interview, you don't have a real boss, you work whenever you feel like it, you don't have to do anything you don't already do every day and it's just so hard to find a job in the Great Resignation, but now you want to cry foul because there's no job security due to people not having enough money to stuff their faces full of shit for a few weeks, so here's some extra cash. 'Murika!" "Oh! It wasn't enough that we paused student loans for all of 2020 and 2021, so we're going to keep extending that, even knowing many of you will just bedmaking minimum payments until the remaining balance falls off (I know doctors making six figures who have been doing this since before the most recent pandemic)."

Full disclosure: I was unemployed for about half of 2020, didn't ever take unemployment and survived on my VA disability while actively pursuing employment. I have also currently paid 80% of my student loans after graduating in 2016. We should be teaching the next generation how to survive in this increasingly dysfunctional world, not letting them believe that some person/organisation will always be there to bail us out after every stupid decision. Apparently, you haven't noticed, but the US brand of capitalism and the stupid idea that we'll just keep throwing money at every problem is literally destroying the planet.

[zapataband1]

You can't shield kids from the effects of the economy and the world. Even given the best of luck and hard work ethic they could fall sick, into debt, and financially crippled.

I think you have the relationship inversely related. The stimulus was -because- people were not working, which was because there was a global pandemic that was also incredibly mishandled by the gov