[smsm42]

>>> Then it's also probably a big fallacy that people can really live off of welfare policy goods

People are living on welfare. Here's one paper on how welfare compares to working in the US: http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/work-versus-wel...

>>> you get is barely enough

Barely enough means enough but without extra things, right? I'm pretty sure a random medieval peasant would kill for a promise of being guaranteed not to die from hunger, always have shelter, have basic medical needs taken care of, not counting such things as free education, free communications, etc. I'm not saying we should let people die on the streets, just when you compare something to medieval, be aware how far we are removed from what happened there.