I wasn't sufficiently clear. In the UK, many people don't get any benefit, even though they're out of work (or working for free), because they're unfamiliar w

I wasn't sufficiently clear. In the UK, many people don't get any benefit, even though they're out of work (or working for free), because they're unfamiliar with the rules, which are based on the fiction that paid work is easy to find. Some welfare (aka workfare) does indeed require the unemployed person taking a full-time job, for which they are paid their jobseeker's allowance and no more, and if they refuse they get nothing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workfare_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workfare_in_the_United_Kingdom