Yeah I have been laid off once, at Fortune 15 company. We got, at least, 2 month of severance pay. And 2 weeks extra for each year with company after first 4 years. It wasn't a tech company, so I always assumed that this is pretty common in mass lay offs.
In Texas, severance pay has no bearing on unemployment insurance. I did same thing but told unemployment office about severance pay, since I was too worried about breaking any rules.
They told me I could win jackpot but they would still legally owe me unemployment pay. It is all about actually woking. If you work and then get paid for that work, that's when you cannot claim unemployment pay.
So, technically, if you do contract work and still claim unemployment, then you are breaking the law.
Yes, I believe he was technically breaking the law by under reporting. My limited understanding was that he was able to avoid issues by billing as an LLC versus an individual and didn't draw a paycheck from his LLC while on unemployment, he just let the money stack.
One of my friend worked for an IT contracting bodyshop 15 years ago. He was a pretty good dev.
His company would occasionally ask him to "audit" interview processes for their clients. They would give him a new name to prevent client from "finding out". He would go through phone screen, onsite interviews. Then he would need to write up a report about the whole process, interview questions, who he met, who said what, etc.
They would pay him pretty decent money on top of his salary for it.
Of course, he knew what it really was, refusing to do it may end up costing his job, so he kept doing it.
I enjoy blogging but it is like a journal. It helps me think. A private journal might work but I tend to ramble on in private journal.
A blog makes me want to write a bit more concise. But I am afraid my friends will find it and may make fun of me.
I still write but not as openly as I want to.