People who were making 50k before might have truly never been worth that much and had a bump from the prior market.
In today's market where reality sets the pay scale it could be that 50k person was never worth that and can't find a anyone who will pay them more than 22k a year, so they refuse to work. They want to stay home and not work while waiting for the never appearing 50k job again.
IMO, they need to grow up and move on. You may have been a former government worker making 70k and could find you are actually hardly qualified to make minimum wage in the real world.
I think you are absolutely correct.
Interesting though that they can suddenly find a way to survive on $1200 a month (or whatever it is) collecting UE.