<prompt> Human: Original post here.Recap: Id been working as an engineer for a small consulting company for the past three years. Company was struggling, which resulted in my pay not really increasing since when I started right out of school, and ultimately I got laid off. Came to rpersonalfinance for input on how to proceed.Ive just been offered a new job, which I will be starting on August 10. I found found out about it through a neighbor of mine who works at the company. I will be making 72,800, up from 53,400 at my old job. My commute will be ten minutes shorter, and I expect to find the new job more interesting and rewarding than the old one.I elected to extend my old health insurance through COBRA, since it wasnt much more expensive than what I could get on my own, and it provides much better coverage. I never got around to filing for unemployment, and I still need to roll my old 401k into an IRA.Looking forward to relaxing for the next two weeks, going on vacation the week after that, and starting my job a few days after the vacation. Life is good!Edit: Woo, front page! Now Ill need to think about deleting my account, as someone who knows me in the real world has no doubt seen this post and recognized me!Assistant: Trust me in this. Take the Unemployment. Replenish your bank account from the cobra payment loss. You paid for it, your former employer paid for it through payroll taxes. Congrats on the job find. Sounds like you got a solid head-on your shoulders. Human: Thanks for the pointer, I may look into that.On the other hand: I feel like the purpose of the unemployment system is to help out people who are experiencing financial hardship. I have not experienced anything remotely resembling financial hardship in my roughly six week by the time I start period of unemployment. It almost feels like Id be abusing the system.  <response>: If you feel like that, dont take it, but seriously: Its an insurance policy that your previous employer was paying into as part of your employment for them. You wouldnt feel bad about collecting insurance if your house caught on fire. You shouldnt feel morally opposed to collecting on an insurance policy against your continued employment.And thats not misconstrued, its literally called Unemployment Insurance. From the CBPP site, it both replaces part of your income while you look for work, and also helps sustain consumer demand during economic downturns. They fully intend for it to not just be need-only. 