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.
If you had not had any unemployment charges during the previous three years, the state unemployment insurance rate would be 0.7 percent â the Illinois minimum â of the first $12,740 of each employeeâs wages, costing your business about $900 per year.Hiring the right people is the first step in managing unemployment costs,â said David Blaine, a Bakersfield, Calif., employment lawyer with Klein, DeNatale, Goldner, Cooper, Rosenlieb & Kimball.