There are the unemployed and there are the welfare moochers. Are some people in both camps? Sure. Are the majority of the unemployed part of the permanent or semi-permanent “gimme, gimme” class? Hard to say. Offer them a job at $8 or $9 an hour and it’s easier to separate the sheep from the goats. I worked at two different states’ unemployment offices for a total of about 15 years and with every week they were unemployed you could see their morale go down, and that was during low unemployment. Today’s situation is about 10X worse than then. When the food stamps, TANF, section 8 and Obamaphones give out, then you’ll see real rioting.
I suspect that the underground economy has far more rapidly than the reported economy. The underground economy will continue to gain strength as long as our borders are as porous as they are now. Obamacare will also insure further growth of the underground economy.