If Public Assistance Programs Disappeared, What Would Be The Consequences?

If all forms of public assistance disappeared, as some Americans seem to want, what would be the consequences?  I'm not sure I have many answers, but I have a lot of questions that "may" just be answers too. First, where would everyone work, if that's the goal of those who favor elimination of assistance? Collectively, companies have pretty much record profits, yet the unemployment rate remains around seven percent (6.1% as of June 2014), although many people have only part time work, but want full time employment. For one thing, wages would be driven down further, as there would be so many people added to the potential work force, and don't go exempting your own job in wage cuts, likely substantial wage cuts, as that nasty little "supply and demand" comes into play ... BIG TIME! Maybe if a lot of people worked for a buck an hour, there would be a sudden explosion of job openings? Of course with such wages, who would have the money to buy anything? Prices would have to come down, but with the rest of the world not participating in this exercise, how would that effect things? Who would take care of elderly or sick family members, if everyone had to work? And with low wages, who would have the money to hire anyone to do so? With no unemployment benefits, what would happen to people who didn't have jobs, for whatever reason? With suppressed wages, how would charities fare, if many people were already struggling to keep themselves from the poorhouse? (Or would there be a poorhouse?) With the wealthy fully in charge, would any and all worker protections disappear? You know, would you be required to work holidays and virtually any number of hours or consecutive days with no extra pay? And what about child labor?   

Just to add a little perspective here, the Great Depression and World War Two both brought major changes to the American labor market. With high unemployment during the Great Depression, one idea was to restrict the labor force; that is, cut down on the number of potential workers, leaving a more limited number to hold or seek scare jobs. Social Security became law in the mid 1930s, with a collection age of 65, but the program took a few years to actually start letting Americans collect (and not all that many companies had pension plans), but once in full swing, the 65 retirement age opened up jobs for younger workers to move up, or enter the work force, in a sort of "chain reaction" (this all took time, including after WW II). The whole situation of unemployment changed during World War Two, as millions of men (and a number of women) went into the armed forces, leaving all sorts of job openings for an economy that had shifted into high gear by making planes, tanks, guns, ships, helmets, military clothing, etc, besides most of the usual things it had already been making. 

Can our current system provide adequate numbers of jobs with living wages and benefits?* Notice I said "living wages and benefits," since providing jobs is not the end game in itself, but providing living standards must be part of our modern civilization. While we've progressed in civilization, there are those who want to go back in time, including some who seem to visualize the past as some ideal period. In the former television show Fantasy Island, people got to see what their "imagined dreams" were really like. My guess is, if we could get some of those with the misguided beliefs about the past onto a new "Fantasy Island," it wouldn't take long for them to want to scurry back to the present, with a very different perspective on the future

* For more on this subject, see these articles:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2012/06/capitalism-long-term-broad-based.html

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2012/07/capitalism-long-term-broad-based.html

WORD HISTORY:
Horn-This traces back to Indo European "kher," which had the idea of "top of the body or head, horn of an animal." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "hurnaz," meaning "horn." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "horn," which has remained that way for many centuries, with the exception of some adding an occasional ending "e" hundreds of years ago. The use of animal horns as instruments brought that added meaning. The other Germanic languages have: German "Horn," Low German "Hoorn," Dutch "hoorn," West Frisian "hoarn," Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish "horn."