. . . and dont have luxury of taking most of the year off.

Not too realistic.

A good friend of mine (and a fine singer of folk songs) was a teacher. He was constantly running into people who would say something like, "Gee, it must be really great to be a teacher. You get a three-month vacation every summer."

My friend said that considering the minuscule salaries that teachers get, it was more like a three-month layoff every year.

Maybe he could have been a teacher during the school year and an actor during the summer months. . . .

I agree with McGrath. One can always find instances here and there of people, or even certain groups of people, skating by on whatever dole they might receive, but oftentimes, if you look into their circumstances and past experiences, you can easily discover that because of barriers put before them by government and by society, there isn't a lot else they can do. Calling on my own my experiences, most people I know who are receiving unemployment insurance are avidly looking for jobs, those who are working for minimum wage are looking for better jobs, and everyone I've ever met who was on welfare hated it.

No, I take that back. There is one woman of my acquaintance who is very happy about her monthly check. She also lives in subsidized housing (she pays 30% of her income), most of her medical bills are taken care of by Medicare (less deductions and co-pays), and her monthly check comes from Social Security Disability Insurance (about $600 a month). She is developmentally disabled and is simply unable to work. Her monthly stipend is barely enough to cover her basic expenses, and were it not for her having lunch three times a week at a local church's free lunch program, she wouldn't eat very well. Her one luxury is an old 13" television set that someone gave her. I, for one, don't begrudge her one penny of her monthly stipend. It should be more.

Don Firth