In the 1930s, it became desirable to give people 'unemployment benefits' to stop the fear of blood in the streets. The famous uproar over the US servicemen who wanted their 'bonus' to live on after WWI, instead of sometime in the future, and which was brutally crushed by certain gung ho young generals who later became famous in WWII, laid the seeds for that.

Squeeze the poor enough, and eventually things happen.