The max unemployment benefit in my state (NY) is $504/week for a maximum of 26 weeks. This adds up to $13k over half a year, or the equivalent of a full-time 40-hour per week job at $12.60/hour. So if you can collect the max benefits, you might beat a walmart job (though minimum wage where I live is higher at $15/hour) but I'd certainly hope that a help desk job pays more than that.

I would expect most software dev jobs to hit the maximum payout but assuming that Walmart/helpdesk job will always be there and you can cover health insurance then it seems to me it would be better to take the unemployment first and get paid to send off a few resumes and have the time to do other things instead and then get the help desk job if you need to.

Unemployment is only temporary.

You mean not a binary state?