It's not a joke; these are real blues musicians, some of them (Joe Louis Walker, Donald Kinsey, David Honeyboy Edwards, Otis Clay, Pinetop Perkins) quite well known. And yes, the blues has often had to struggle and compromise to reach a wider audience.
At its peak, the program offered up to 99 weeks of coverage. It's been scaled down gradually ever since. Two states with high unemployment, Illinois and Nevada, had offered 73 weeks of benefits. California had offered 63 weeks, and most others offered 43 to 63 weeks.
Yesterday, Republicans filibustered two procedural votes on legislation to extend benefits. Under normal times, an individual can collect unemployment benefits for a maximum of 26 weeks. But after the recession, Congress passed the emergency benefit program to extend that duration to 73 weeks, although the exact length varied by state. Now, federal benefits have returned to their 26 week duration. Two states - Montana (28 weeks) and Massachusetts (30 weeks) - offer benefits for slightly longer.