Are you really talking about the couple thousand dollars that people received during the pandemic? In most of the country that might have paid your rent for a month or a few weeks of groceries or if you're fortunate maybe one luxury good.
IMO one nice (un?)intended consequence of the liquids restriction is limiting liquid spills on the floor of the plane i.e. somebody can't spill a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew or IDK, a gallon of laundry detergent on the plane (Sure there's the beverages on the plane or whatever you can buy post-security but they're usually not that large either) -- there's enough mess without having to deal with people porting around whatever amount of liquid they please.
The point isn't really whether its a net benefit or not, the point it's a "luxury" of tens to several hundred dollars per month that is almost universal at this point that is not really comparable to any other discretionary purchase historically.
you can cancel a flight or a truck shipment (not great but feasible) -- you can't quite just cancel patients that are in the hospital.