During the worst time in economic history, the Great Depression, there wasn't a system in place to help workers if they were suddenly unemployed because of a layoff. That in itself probably exacerbated the length of the Depression, because the unemployed had no source of income.
If there wasn't a current system to provide an income to the unemployed today, it is likely we would be well on our way to another Great Depression. This doesn't mean that we won't suffer from a Depression, but an immediate acceleration into a Depression has been stalled, at least for the moment.
Unemployment offices across the country are overwhelmed by all the new unemployed. Some states have computer systems to keep from hiring people to do the work, but computers being computers, they can cause problems as well. Thus, employees working the phones at the unemployment centers have a backlog of calls to answer, inspite of the fancy computer systems. It seems, however, once a person is in the system, things go smoother.
