Laid off in the US generally implies there is some severance pay. We do not get any details, but I would assume he gets some severance pay that he isn't talking about (he probably cannot, and it is possible given the details that he doesn't even know yet)

There is fired for cause cases where the login stops working at the same time as your pay stop, but for cause means you screwed up, and your pay probably should have stopped several months ago but it took time to investigate to ensure you really were that bad.

Granted small companies will often say "sorry we are out of money, don't come back Monday".

Generally pay is tremendously higher in the USA. Tech companies, although not compelled to, grant severances if you aren’t “fired for cause”. Also in most other places you have to give like a 3 month notice if you want to quit.

It’s frustrating hiring Europeans for this reason but at least they are significantly cheaper to pay than in the USA.