If an adult is hiding in the bushes to avoid work, he does not deserve public benefits of any sort. The program I propose would eliminate such people from the unemployment/welfare/public benefit rolls, saving millions of taxpayer dollars.
Some simple accounting:
Days 1-3: lazy bum is employed by your company and accomplishes nothing.
Day 4: you fire them for laziness.
Day 5: the government compensates you for their wages plus a premium for the wasted supervisor's time, risk, etc.
Day 6-week 99: the government does not pay unemployment benefits to the lazy bum.
Provided 99 weeks of unemployment costs more than 3 days wages + supervisory premiums, I can't see how this could fail to save money.
You forgot the part where someone with limited education and no employment prospects steals a car or holds up a store because they have nothing left to sell and a loan shark threatening them with broken kneecaps. Some unemployment is good for the economy, employee surplus keeps wages lower and ensure there is necessary labour available for short term needs. Most modern, capitalist economies try to maintain at least some level of surplus in the labour market, because history has shown that it is a good idea.
The scheme I worked for was an attempt to rehabilitate the long term unemployed and attempt to train them in a marketable skill. In my view, it was a failure for 95% of people there but it taught me a lot about managing difficult people. Note that I wasn't sent to work there, I worked for an employment company that managed the implementation of the government's idea.
The present education, family, societal and financial system is creating people who have no practical skills, no motivation to work and very little prospects. You have to deal with them as a nation somehow. Doing nothing will lead to social unrest, crime, bankruptcy and a whole swathe of other issues. Giving them money for nothing just creates deadweight dragging down the rest of the economy and basically gives them a life of subsistence poverty. Solving this issue is not easy. Get to work or suffer is a bad solution because suffering isn't limited to the individual, it is inflicted on those closest to them and the rest of us too.
I for one would not be happy to live in a country where people have to live on the streets. 'Lazy Bum' is a pretty brutal indictment of a vast range of people, some of whom may have no other option, may not have the ability to read or the physical ability to pick grapes.
This stuff starts with education. You cannot expect to be a service economy if your K-12 education fails a decent percentage of society. Luckily the tools are becoming available to help, and we need students, teachers and schools to take advantage.
Please pay attention. According to Tsagadai's description, the people he supervised were capable of climbing onto roofs in order to avoid work and were capable of working when ordered to do so.
They merely preferred hiding in the bushes to doing actual work. This was the same situation Georgia had when they tried to get probationers to work the fields - they were capable of working, but unwilling.
This is the group of people to whom I applied the term "lazy bum".
Under my proposal, no one has to live on the streets. The only option which is eliminated is the "be lazy, force workers to pay for your leisure" option.
Some simple accounting:
Days 1-3: lazy bum is employed by your company and accomplishes nothing.
Day 4: you fire them for laziness.
Day 5: the government compensates you for their wages plus a premium for the wasted supervisor's time, risk, etc.
Day 6-week 99: the government does not pay unemployment benefits to the lazy bum.
Provided 99 weeks of unemployment costs more than 3 days wages + supervisory premiums, I can't see how this could fail to save money.