Yeah honestly it's a bit wild to me that this is a controversial take, and the proposals to "solve" this problem have largely been to cut people off from benefits.
It seems like the people that have the highest risk of unemployment payouts pay the least (in taxes or premiums), which is not how insurance works.
But I think it's reasonable to assume (though I'd be interested in a study on this), that over a lifetime a person will have paid for all of its unemployment benefits.
You can't be on unemployment forever, and you can't just go on it year over year, because there is a minimum amount of wage/work-hour you'll need to meet to be able to go back on unemployment if you're laid off again and have expired your allocated benefits (as I understand).
That means that any worker going on unemployment can only get so much benefits per amount of time working or wages accrued.
That's why I think over a lifetime, most people pay-back all of their benefits.
The answer to the question makes it clear that the money is a disincentive to work, which is not what the 'insurance' is for.
It's not a pool you pay into and claim from 'because you can' - you claim it 'if you must'.
If someone claimed insurance 'because they could, not because they must' in most scenarios we'd call it fraud.
So yes - collect if you must, but then the answer to the question should be 0% for those implying that the benefit is a disincentive to return to work.
Would you take any job even if it pays less and has worse conditions then the one your were laid off from?
Would you take any job no matter what? Even it it has terrible work conditions and doesn't even pay as much as your employment insurance?
Would you take any job that pays more then your current unemployment even if it doesn't interest you in the slightest or seems to have bad conditions?
Would you take any job that seems a good fit for you long term, that interests you, seem to offer conditions you find reasonable, and pays better than your current unemployment?
Would you take the opportunity to train yourself in something new so that you can find work in new domains that might pay better and have less chance of being laid off again in the future?
Which of these would you consider "cheating" the unemployment insurance and which would you say is "in the spirit" of what it's suppose to afford you as a person recently laid off?
Also, on the topic of how long, the benefits in most state end after around 26 weeks, so there is a hard cut off that was chosen for some reason. I guess you could argue to make it shorter or longer, but I think that needs answering my previous question about what is "in spirit" and what isn't so we can set the right length of time given that.
If that is what the current state of society demands. Yes, absolutely. We could change it but there is a reason why things are the way they are and they have absolutely nothing to do with calm and rational thinking.
Doesn't that mean taking on serious debt? Maybe people are reluctant to do that in a difficult economic situation. Not to mention there are other ways to gain skills other than going to a university.