Kokua Line
Kokua Line
I tried to call the unemployment office, but it is always busy. I'd like to know how the amount a person receives for unemployment is determined. Unemployment paycheck
uses complicated formulaThe formula is rather complicated, but we asked Pat Stanley, spokesman for the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, for a simplified version of how it's done.
Here goes: If you're qualified to receive unemployment benefits, you will receive at least 62 percent of what you had been earning. But the maximum, even if you earned $100,000 a year, is now $356 a week.
You must have been paid wages during a base period of at least 26 times your weekly benefit amount. This is to ensure your benefits don't exceed your wages, since you can collect unemployment benefits for a maximum of 26 weeks.
This is the simplified explanation. The formula involves base periods, quarters, the figure 21 and multiplying this with that.
"Insured work" means work that makes you eligible for unemployment benefits. By state law, 16 categories of workers are excluded, including the self-employed, agriculture laborers, domestic service workers, student nurses, insurance agents, newspaper vendors, travel agents, ministers, student workers in a school, election workers, or workers on commission.
I love to play tennis at the Ala Moana public courts. Recently, I was playing with a partner when two foreign nationals started smoking while waiting on the bench. I had to quit because of the smoke. I could not ask them to stop because I do not speak their language, and even then, that would be a rather unpleasant situation. There may not be a law to prevent smoking in a public park, but smoking on a tennis court is rather inconsiderate. Can the parks department help? Not under current laws.
Because the tennis court is considered an open area - not "enclosed by a roof and at least three walls" - there is no prohibition against smoking, said city Parks and Recreation Department spokeswoman Patti Nagao.
"Except to remind park users to be considerate of others and to use the appropriate receptacle to dispose of cigarette butts, there is little else we can do to alter the habits of smokers," she said.
My credit union (I shall not name which one) has started to charge my account, which they say is dormant, meaning no transaction has taken place for a year, $6 per quarter. It did not give me any notice of such charges, nor notice of how I could rectify this condition. Don't you think that I should have had warning before the action is taken? If you opened your account within the last three years, you should have been given a schedule of all fees at the time of opening, said Dennis Tanimoto, president of the Hawaii Credit Union League.
That's specified by the Truth in Savings Act.
However, there's no regulation regarding notification immediately prior to the assessment of a fee, Tanimoto said. And there was no requirement for notification before the act took effect.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now has a toll-free number for travelers information. Call 1-888-232-3228. Traveler's update
To two big men who tried to run me and my 18-month-old and 10-year-old daughters off the road on the freeway, just past the Kapolei exit. I was five months pregnant. I don't know what I did but suddenly, their old gray truck came up next to me, with the driver swearing, showing me his finger, then trying to run my car off. They need to learn how to control their road rage! Auwe
Need help with problems? Call Kokua Line at 525-8686,
fax 525-6711, or write to P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Email to kokualine@starbulletin.com
