system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does unemployment work? Who pays for it?

Should I stay on unemployment as long as possible to maximize my benefit or does that just hurt my taxes later? I'm totally unclear how it works.

This question is USA-centric.
gpt
Unemployment is an insurance system. Everyone pays an unemployment insurance premium (or their employers do, depending on the location, but it is part of your compensation). Then unemployment gets paid out of the fund of that unemployment insurance that you paid. It is an ante to the gamble that you are terminated wrongfully or without cause, and the payout is some percentage of your wages, as determined by what you paid in.

This means that you SHOULD find a job again if you can.
This means that taking it is NOT robbing the system.