What's unfathomable to me is that so many people seem to believe that a sense of purpose can only be derived from need.

Humans aren't like that. They don't deprive themselves of activity like a bored dog unless you (who?) give them a job. If you give people their time back, they will fill it out with whatever they actually want to do, and that's freedom.

Conversely, the erosion of free time over the past generation has arguably also eroded the social structures that keep people healthy.