Well that and you don't get health care unless you are employed, independently wealthy or someone else's dependent that does work.
In the US, if you don't figure it out on your own and get rich, people just view you as scum and don't care whatsoever. This is why we have psychopaths shooting up concerts, a receding youthful male population, increased suicide rates in general, and people just tuning out of society. There is no defined purpose. You just have to make it. Which is incredibly hard in an economy devised full of choices, every which way preys upon your financial naivety.
The US is a system of the lucky being raised right.