England is a great example of government created problems from years of socialistic practices are not easily fixed by government policy. Instead, eventually countries get dragged through a period of austerity with the citizens kicking and screaming and potential civil disturbances occur as anger that "the government let the country down".
Politicians more focused on "re-election" than long term economic viability easily fall prey to creating layers of entitlements that are simply not sustainable regardless of the good intent behind them.
The simple answer for every country is to pursue a strategy that ensures its citizens have the skills to do the jobs needed in the society. Then creates the incentives (usually in the form of profit) for individuals to risk their savings to create new businesses and jobs. Limit long term entitlements to the elderly and disabled. Condition all other entitlements by tying them to "work" of some kind that helps society and keeps people engaged in work.
Finally, there are two other core strategies every nation should pursue. First and foremost, every country should pursue energy independence. The technology exists to accomplish that. It is inexcusable that politicians in Europe dismantled their nuclear and coal plants and switched to Russian natural gas. You want to reduce CO2 emissions have a real plan that doesn't abandon nuclear and coal, till you have no need for those energy sources. Dumb, dumb, dumb... flying jets around to conferences bragging about cutting CO2 emissions while you expose your citizens to potential economic collapse is no way to run a country.
The second core strategy is carefully manage the operating costs of government activities that don't have the benefit of shareholders demanding efficiency. I have worked for nonprofits, mutual, and for-profit enterprises and government contractors on cost plus contracts. Simply said, in spite of the need to produce profits, the for-profit enterprises ran over the others whenever they were put in a position to compete with one another.
Resources are limited, the failure to demand profit means there is not control on resource consumption. Capitalism can be abusive and so needs to be regulated, but socialism is corrosive, and it is virtually impossible to regulate abuse since one puts the "government" in charge of regulating itself.
