Study: Uncommon for people to take advantage of unemployment

It's fair to say that whenever a program such as unemployment insurance is in place, some people are going to take advantage of it. But while how many people actually do this is difficult to pin down, most officials and out-of-work people I talk to on a regular basis say it's not a common practice.

Let's start with human resource directors. I talk to a lot of them, and dozens of times have posed this question: Do people turn down jobs because the positions don't pay as much as the unemployment check the job candidates are getting?

The most common answer when I've asked in recent months is, no. It happens so rarely that most struggle to think of a time when it actually did occur.