Not as a check. Because of the continuous stream of oil money in KSA, it has been possible to grant subsidies on goods or handouts to people. Even not collecting any VAT on good or if so a rather low VAT. When you are losing a lot of your income as a state, you can't really keep that standard up.

I suggest reading this, it's an older article, but the circumstances are the same: https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabian-social-contrac...