My two cents on this subject:

When I was out of work, I also received unemployment insurance. Here in Canada, the program is government run, and premiums are manditorily (is that a word?) deducted from every paycheck.

When I was unemployed, my unemployment insurance payments came to roughly twice the salary of a full time minimum-wage job, hence the reason why I waited for a decent job. I would have taken pretty much anything that paid that much or more, and I applied for such jobs. I just never got them.

As for the suggestion about volunteering, I couldn't agree more. I did some volunteer work while I was unemployed, and I wish that I had done more.