They are menial tasks? I was hoping they were upgrades, training for different/better positions. If a clerk, say, is out of a job and has to go push a broom in some factory in order to qualify for continued unemployment support, I would agree most definitely that it is demeaning and shortsighted. If however, the clerk was put to work learning computer repair, for instance, I'd say that it is a step upward.

In the USA in order to retain unemployment benefits, claimants are required to actively seek work and if offered work that is comparable in skills and pay to what they had trained for or had experience in, they can be booted off the benefits.