Who can “live” on unemployment insurance benefits? The payments are paltry in most states. I weorked as a veteran’s representative at a state unemployment office for 12 years.
There’s a conglomeration of benefits that usually kick in for a dole case. Some states are fairly generous with UI, but there’s stuff like food stamps, Section 8, cash bennies. To be so much of a bum that you couldn’t even be a bum on the dole would be hard.
It’s interesting, but the average unemployment check is greater than what one would make at a minimum wage job, and some folks do live on that. Granted, one would likely have to curtail one’s lifestyle, but it can be done.
You seem to suggest that the purpose of unemployment benefits is to keep one in the same financial position one was in prior to being laid off. That would be a pretty sweet deal.