Every country has had plenty of people who fall through the holes in whatever assistance programs they have in place, and the US media has downplayed their down

Every country has had plenty of people who fall through the holes in whatever assistance programs they have in place, and the US media has downplayed their downsides compared to what the US did. For example, there's been a tendency in the American press to push the UK's furlough program as better than the US approach because it kept more people off unemployment, but as far as I could tell the US enhanced unemployment was substantially better for the worst-off amongst you than UK furlough, and those who didn't benefit from furlough and had to go on unemployment - for example, because their employer went out of business, or they were between jobs, or had started a new job too recently - were much worse off here.