[arthurus]

driving out-of-work Americans to consider selling cars, moving and taking minimum wage work after already slashing household budgets and pawning personal possessions to make ends meet

Well, this is what you do in a depression. Putting the still solvent portion of the population into that condition by taking their resources to prop up the insolvent is not helping anything at all and depressing the economy further thus hurting everyone outside of the government sponsored finance community.

and taking minimum wage work

And a purpose of welfare/unemployment comp is to spare one from having to work for less than he would like? That is destructive on more than one level.

[MaxMax]

And a purpose of welfare/unemployment comp is to spare one from having to work for less than he would like?

Unemployment benefits pay less than they made, and those collecting don't seem
to have a problem with that. But Work for less? GASP!