There never was a link or a program to get paid to stay home. You are trying to twist yourself into a pretzel pretending UI=getting paid to stay home. Yes there are scumbags that game the system and you seem to know some of them.
By your logic all UI even before the pandemic was getting paid to stay home.
You should change your name to Auntie Anne. Enough with the pretzels.
Regular UI lasts up to a year, and is very little. UI has been extended well past a year now. There's also PUA, which added $300-600 per week, effectively doubling or even tripling benefits for most people. Add in stimulus money, plus no rent/mortgage expense, and you now have a very sizeable chunk of the workforce who can maintain or exceed their previous standard of living without working. And that's without the free food, lowered thresholds for Medicaid, or the plethora of other smaller subsidies from local and federal agencies and non-profits. On top of that, you have people who wouldn't have qualified for UI, like people who were self-employed or gig workers.
This isn't "gaming the system." This IS the system. It actively encourages people to sit at home and collect the handouts instead of looking for work. It was built to do that. We
wanted people to stay home in the beginning of the pandemic, so the system was set up to facilitate and encourage that. The situation on the ground has changed significantly since April 2020, but the system hasn't adapted.
