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“$20/ hour whether I work or not, debts wiped clean, free healthcare - I’d never work another day in my life. In fact, I bet A LOT of people would never work again.”

Uh-huh. Not.

$20/hr for doing nothing means $20 is worth nothing. That means $40,000 will buy you nothing because nobody has to do anything but wait a year to accumulate it. $40/hr would become the new minimum wage, and prices would adjust to match. Elsewhere I’ve noted that a gallon of gas is now worth about 20 minutes of work; regardless of what minimum wage is, and what minimum work for that wage is, a gallon of gas will always be worth around 20 minutes of mundane burger-flipping floor-sweeping labor, and the common medium of exchange will adjust to that (and if the dollar is rendered null by $20=nothing, then another currency will arise).

Most people, being used to debt and seeing debt as a reasonable path to their financial goals, will go right back into it. Vast numbers of debt-free homes will go on sale the next day, as the owners seek to upgrade via mortgages ... collapsing the market. Those used to spending beyond their means will swipe that credit card just as fast. Think the federal government would consider sovereign forgiveness of $15T debt a blessing? baloney - they’ll start the first year by racking up the $1.5T we’re already working on, and spend until they catch up that number quick. The frugal and thrifty will remain so.

Free healthcare means demanding the most expensive treatments for the most minor ailments. A childhood scratch will demand premium dermitalogical reconstruction. Expensive medicines will be demanded in lieu of suitable cheap ones (I can either watch what I eat and pay $3/month for my meds, or $250/month for the latest no-diet-restrictions stuff; if meds are “free”, you’re paying me a lot to eat salads). Even now, I see my kids getting premium treatment for stuff that just got a bandaid before (thousands of $$$ instead of pennies).

Heck yeah you’ll work again. $100,000/yr will become barely enough to get by, upon which you’ll rack up a half-million in debt by year’s end, and you’ll be working 3 jobs by the time you realize you’re suffering “Jackpot Winner Syndrome” (most lottery winners are destitute in short order).