Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by governmental bodies to unemployed people. Depending on the country and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.

Unemployment benefits are generally given only to those registering as becoming unemployed through no fault of their own, and often on conditions ensuring that they seek work.

In British English, unemployment benefits are also colloquially referred to as "the dole", or simply "benefits"; receiving benefits is informally called "being on the dole". "Dole" here is an archaic expression meaning "one's allotted portion", from the synonymous Old English word dāl.

In Australia and New Zealand, a "dole bludger" is someone on unemployment benefits who makes no effort to find work. In the United Kingdom, the equivalent word used to describe the same thing is "layabout" and in the United States, "slacker" is most commonly used to describe someone who chooses not to work for a living.

The first modern unemployment benefit scheme was introduced in the United Kingdom with the National Insurance Act 1911, under the Liberal Party government of H. H. Asquith. The popular measures were introduced to stave off poverty inflicted through unemployment, though they also gave the Liberal Party the added benefit of combatting the Labour Party's increasing influence among the country's working-class population. The Act gave the British working classes a contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment. It only applied to wage earners, however, and their families and the unwaged had to rely on other sources of support, if any. Key figures in the implementation of the Act included Robert Laurie Morant and William Braithwaite.

By the time of its implementation, the benefits were criticised by Communist parties, who saw such insurance as a means to prevent workers from starting a revolution, while employers and Tories sometimes saw it as a "necessary evil".

The scheme was based on actuarial principles and was funded by fixed amounts from workers, employers, and taxpayers. It was restricted to particular industries, particularly more volatile ones like shipbuilding, and did not make provision for any dependants. After one week of unemployment, a worker was eligible to receive 7/- per week for up to 15 weeks in a year. By 1913, 2,300,000 were insured under the unemployment benefit programme.

The Unemployment Insurance Act 1920 created the dole system of payments for unemployed workers in the United Kingdom. The dole system provided 39 weeks of unemployment benefits to over 11,000,000 workers—practically the entire civilian working population except domestic service, farmworkers, railway men, and civil servants.