Here in Illinois, you can get unemployment right away if you were fired for anything other than willful misconduct. You have to fill out an extra form, and it takes a few weeks for them to investigate why you were fired, but then you earn benefits back to the point from when you were fired. Actually, I think there's a one-week waiting period before you earn benefits, whether you were laid off or fired.

In any case, being fired without willful misconduct is treated the same as being laid off.

--dan.