Unemployment never pays your full salary, and how much it even scales with your salary caps at a number much lower than is relevant for about the top 75% of software engineers in most states. Assuming you're not straight up lying, then the people you talked to likely derived considerable security from their savings and future job prospects, or possibly even other exogenous factors such as supportive families or income-earning partners rather than unemployment benefits alone

Or they were unmortgaged home owners already - You really don't need that much money to just keep on living for a few months at that point.

And how many are really at that point if they are not much older?

Only takes one to make an anecdote

> All they had to do was lie about looking for a job.

So ... fraud? Probably nets you up to six months in prison?

I agree that it's wrong and was shocked when a friend brought up that's what they did and several friends chimed in "me too".

Unfortunately, tons of people in the world really don't care about wrong, they only care about what they can get away with? Their argument was "I paid the unemployment tax, I should be able to take advantage of the benefit". But I agree, the point is not to use as much as possible. It's to use as little as possible. We can't have nice things because lots of people will abuse the system.