Average education levels for women when Abe Lincoln was president was 2nd-4th grade level. People routinely quit school after 8t grade. Often, only people who wanted a serious professional career went on to high school.

It is within my lifetime that we moved from more than half of all people living outside of cities to more than half living within cities. Not terribly long ago, most jobs were farm related in some fashion.

I don't know what the solution is, but I seriously doubt that most people today would feel like someone with a 2nd grade education or even an 8th grade education deserves a job as they are, without first getting more education. As society evolves, there tends to be upward pressure on how much education is needed to get even an entry level job. This is not merely assholery by the people running the bureaucracy or whatever. Things seem to genuinely get more complicated and take more skill.

I think one big piece of the puzzle is that we need to bring back genuinely affordable housing. It has largely gone the way of the dinosaur. I think this puts enormous pressure on people, regardless of what kind of job they have. It cuts off a lot of avenues.

But I seem to be howling into a void. Everyone seems to be discussing UBI and largely ignoring the fact that even if you cut everyone a check for some kind of basic income, if we don't solve some of our housing issues, you will still see growing numbers of people either homeless or crammed together like sardines in a space not intended to hold that many people.