In the US, you are only eligible for unemployment if you had a job for a prolonged period before collecting it. Thus people who are permanently not working are

In the US, you are only eligible for unemployment if you had a job for a prolonged period before collecting it. Thus people who are permanently not working are not eligible for unemployment. A student, for example, who has just graduated and never held a job CANNOT receive unemployment. It is intended to be a temporary benefit to compensate for losing a job so you can survive until you find your next job. Furthermore, generally your unemployment payments are proportional to the income you received from your job - the more highly paid your job was, the higher the unemployment payment (since the unemployment insurance tax would also have been proportionally higher). Welfare is different. Welfare is considered an entitlement - you do not ever have to work to receive it. Americans justify unemployment insurance as "not being lazy" because the people who receive it had at some point held a job.