In California, so long as you do not get fired for misconduct you are (generally) eligible to collect unemployment benefits whether you are fired or laid off. The definition of misconduct in California law is actually quite narrow—there are four standards and you must meet all of them in order to be ineligible for unemployment.
Obviously this is only one state in a large country in an even bigger world, so this may not be applicable to where you are. But wanted to clarify for any SF/LA/other CA city readers that the legal distinction for unemployment is not being laid off vs being fired, but losing your job for misconduct vs losing your job for some other reason.
Sad thing is that the money from unemployment hasn't gone up for years. $1800/mo pre-tax. I was pretty pissed when first on it that the feds tax the unemployed, seems like kicking someone when they're down, but at least in CA there's no state tax, which I learned occurs in other states.
Obviously this is only one state in a large country in an even bigger world, so this may not be applicable to where you are. But wanted to clarify for any SF/LA/other CA city readers that the legal distinction for unemployment is not being laid off vs being fired, but losing your job for misconduct vs losing your job for some other reason.