Barely. I'm quite convinced the government does it on purpose to keep us under control and dependent on their help.
We have a certain "minimum level of existance", if you make that (or less) money, you get certain tax breaks or some payments towards paying mandatory things.
Because I only work part-time besides my study, I too get some "free" money.
(I don't work at minimum wage anymore though, I make $19 an hour as a network admin, but only a few days a month, because fulltime student. I mostly live off of a college loan.)
Rent: $600 minus $185 government payment.
Waste and water management: $55, of which I have to pay none*.
Health insurance: $185 minus $89 government payment.
college: $211/month. (we pay this ourselves, the government pays the school another $35k or something if you succesfully finish a study succesfully.)
study books: about $100/month, I guess.
Car Tax: $78 (780 kilo diesel econobox)
Car Insurance: $50/month. (slowly went down from about $100/month 4 years ago.)
Fuel: about $150/month.
*as long as I don't have a savings account with enough money to pay the whole$660/year at once, and I don't have a $1k/month taxable income, and not own a car with an estimated value of $3.5k or over, I get a tax break on that one. Apparently I can also only have $300 in cash, but how are they gonna know?
(I empty my bank account before the end of the year)
[edit:] also, because of us being a bunch of socialists, if you're unable to find a job, or are physically incapable of work, they'll pay you the $1k a month for minimum existance, but you'll have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it. (To prove that you really can't work or can't find a job.)
If you're fired as a full-time employee, you get something like 80% of your last wage for an x amount of time, dependent on how long you worked at the company. (I think it was a month per worked year, but not sure, never got fired) Oh, and it doesn't count if you leave out of free will.