I've seen people put personal gain over doing what's "right" over and over in my life. As a person with an "upholder" tendency (see Gretchen Rubin's book the Four Tendencies) I tend to take this sort of thing poorly.
I remember a guy that was a member of the church we were going to. He was a divorced father of 1 teenage boy that lived with him. He told everyone he was in the "import/export business" didn't appear to work very hard or much. He rented a house and had rented out a couple of the bedrooms to other men. He got involved with the money management group at our church and even appeared in a video "ad" for the group and how well the church was doing with the money donated to the church.
Once his son was an adult and out of the house the guy "fell in love with" an ugly older woman. He told people and the pastor at our church that they were "married in the eyes of God" but when pressed admitted that they were not legally married because the woman didn't want to lose her dead husband's pension as income.
This bothered me a lot! It struck me as dishonest on multiple levels. And from the guy's slick personality I deduced that he was doing this for the money and distanced myself from him.
I knew people at work that did the same thing. One woman lost her husband in the Middle East while he was deployed with the US Army. She got his pension then started living with another man. I watched her continue living with that man and even have a child with that man without ever getting married. She was open to people about how she didn't want to give up her dead husband's military pension and benefits. Another person that I kept my distance from due to dishonesty and what I perceive as cheating the system.
I've seen so many stories and examples of this over the course of my life. And I feel like these people have been poor examples to the younger people coming up that now see no issue with this sort of lying and stealing.
This sort of stuff plays out in welfare circles to the point that women have children to augment their income. Other people aspire to being deemed "handicapped" and "disabled" by the government so they can get a monthly check in an amount that allows them to live without having to "work". Then they work for cash or barter so they don't jeopardize their "income" from the welfare/disability office.
Then the things happening to younger people as they watch these older people live this way! Living together as a couple is treated as a financial decision instead of committing to an engagement and then marriage as a way to come together as a couple. I feel like these poor examples being set by older adults help lead younger people to more and more faulty thinking as they think the "morals" of the past are old fashioned and useless.
I find it sad to watch this rotting of our societal moral fiber happen in my lifetime.
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