[duckfang]

Yes you are correct that unemployment insurance is taken out of a check, and paid in part by the company.

HOWEVER in many states, and the further republican/red it is, the more onerous it is to be granted it. It'd be a whole different story if it were really employment insurance". Much of the time, it's "unemployment insurance after 6-12 weeks if the systems to register you actually work, and you arent excluded for inane reasons, and you aren't later excluded for $reasons". And hope you can survive on what you have currently in the bank for the SLOW state procedures to give you a ruling.

Turns out, the state doesn't want to pay out just as much as insurance companies don't want to pay out.

And to counter your narrative, I've seen the state point at unemployed people the local state park as a temp job. When they took it (else they lost benefits), the temp job ended and were excluded from filing for unemployment since they knowingly took a temp job.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-states-unemployment-insu...