There are several major problems with the U. S. reactions to this situation. America has not had these kinds of problems for a long time and has no genuine mechanisms built into the bureaucracy for dealing with them. The society is so mobile, individuals do not have the interdependent family networks for coping with hardtimes. Self reliance is a myth, it died with the transition from a rural to urban society. America lacks roots. Genuine home ownership and personal property are beyond the financial possibility of middle to lower income groups and still climbing. ( A mortgage is not the same as owning a home. Walt told me years ago, "Always own your roof".) The term of unemployment benefits need to be adjusted regionally to reflect the possibility of reentering the workd force. There is a prevalent attitude in the U. S. that indiviuals who are using the social system are doing so by choice not circumstances. ( I won't deny there are a few.) I have lived for years in the federal riding of Canada that had the highest unemployment and welfare rates. A few years ago there was a policy change in government that was built around consultation with unemployment and welfare recipients. Amazingly both have declined so dramatically that one of the motivating factors in our retirement from farming, was the growing scarcity of hired help. People were no longer desperate for jobs. These people were clamouring for meaningful education. It was expensive in the short term and I heard a lot of people comment "@#%& parasites just milking the system again". It just wasn't so. Our local economy is over the hump and HUGELY better. But in America the solution would bring horrendous, agonizing, screams of rampant socialism from the right.