BENEFITS

and received benefits after the pandemic devastated the concert business — “my industry’s gone,” he said — but then his claim was placed into “pending” status for weeks.

Then he got an offer to work on a job in Los Angeles for a month.

“I ignored the whole system altogether [while working] because for weeks you couldn’t get in to do anything,” Eldredge said. “Now I’m ‘back in the system,’ eligible to receive benefits, and last week I got several weeks of unemployment.”

His situation also is made more complicated because he’s unemployed again after having received benefits while employed.

Eldredge said the requirement to prove he’s looking for jobs may be officially waived, “but on the website, that has never gone away. It clearly states you have to fill that out before you can get to the next page — and the next page is ‘Are you unemployed due to COVID-19?’ They’ve got the pages backwards.”

He said he is still applying for new work.

“But I’m just going where the system takes me at this point.”