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With a flood of unemployment claims continuing to overwhelm many state agencies, economists say the job losses may be far worse than government tallies indicate. The Labor Department said Thursday that 3.8 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the six-week total to 30 million. But researchers say that as the economy staggers under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of others have lost jobs but have yet to see benefits. (Schwartz, Hsu and Cohen, 4/30)

Iowa, Oklahoma and other states reopening soon amid the coronavirus outbreak are issuing early warnings to their worried workers: Return to your jobs or risk losing unemployment benefits. The threats have been loudest among Republican leaders in recent days, reflecting their anxious attempts to jump-start local economic recovery roughly two months after most businesses shut their doors. In Iowa, for example, state officials even have posted a public call for companies to get in touch if an “employee refuses to return to work.” (Romm, 4/30)

Former President Obama is urging Americans to prepare for an extended period of economic turmoil and other lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In a recent virtual town hall hosted by My Brother's Keeper, a national initiative for young men of color launched by Obama while he was in the White House, the former president said that he didn't want people to view the current pandemic as a "short-term thing." (Wise, 4/30)

As unemployment soars across the country, tenants rights groups and community nonprofits have rallied around an audacious goal: to persuade the government to halt rent and mortgage payments — without back payments accruing — for as long as the economy is battered by the coronavirus. The effort has been brewing on social media, with the hashtag #CancelRent and online video rallies, as well as a smattering of in-person protests, frequently held in cars to maintain social distancing. (Haag and Dougherty, 5/1)

More than 30 million people have applied for unemployment as of April 30, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Many are falling behind on their rent and are being evicted, despite new rules designed to stop evictions. Experts say the moratoriums by state and local officials don't go far enough and are leaving tenants vulnerable. "My main concern is that I'll be evicted," says David Perez. The self-employed father of one sells artisanal wares, like wallets and sandals, at a flea market in Elkridge, Md. "What's going to happen to my family?" (Penaloza, 5/1)

With evictions banned during the coronavirus pandemic in the nation’s capital, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) advised tenants this week to “stay current” on rental payments “to the best of your ability.” But the D.C. Tenants Union is offering renters different advice: to strike. (Lang, 4/30)

To ease some of the economic burdens during the COVID-19 crisis, some states have placed moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures. And under the CARES Act, the federal government has placed a temporary delay on federally insured single-family properties. But Columbia Law School's Emily Benfer, who helped create the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard with Princeton University's Eviction Lab to track each states’ housing plans during the pandemic, says many states are still offering little to no protection. (Mosley and McMahon, 4/30)

There was grim news on Thursday for Rhode Island’s efforts to stop the coronavirus. Unemployment topped 197,000. Fifteen more people died, bringing the death toll to 266. Another 374 Rhode Islanders tested positive for the disease, raising the total cases to 8,621, according to the state Department of Health. There are 339 people in the hospital with complications associated with COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, with 85 in intensive care and 54 on ventilators. (Milkovits, 4/30)

The COVID-19 layoffs keep coming, weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order effectively closed most of California’s economy. Hundreds of Sacramento-area workers were part of mass layoffs at their jobs in recent weeks, according to a review of the WARN Act notices filed with the state in April. The public mass-layoff notices, required by law, provide yet another glimpse of how much the area’s economy has suffered since the coronavirus pandemic struck. (Kasler and Finch II, 4/30)

COVID-19 will trigger a wave of healthcare bankruptcies in 2020, but the pandemic had the opposite effect in the first quarter. That's because the economic turmoil in March likely threw a wrench in the exit strategies of companies that had previously planned to file last month. And since most of the damage hit in mid-March when many stay-at-home orders took effect, March 31 was too soon for most other filings. (Bannow, 4/30)