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The state unemployment systems that were supposed to help millions of jobless workers were full of boxes to check and mandates to meet that couldn’t possibly apply in a pandemic, the New York Times reported. States required workers to document their job searches, weekly; to register with employment services, in person; to take a wait period before their first check, up to 10 days. Such requirements increased in the years following the Great Recession, as many states moved to tighten access to or reduce unemployment benefits. With them, most states cut the share of jobless workers they helped. Now these requirements have been getting in the way. Effectively, many states have been trying to scale up aid with systems built to keep claims low. “In a time when pretty much everybody who’s applying should be eligible, we’re working with a system that got us to a 26 percent recipiency rate,” said Steve Gray, the director of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency. That means Michigan was giving aid to one in four unemployed workers in 2019, following restrictions adopted by the Michigan legislature after the Great Recession. That system, Gray said, was “built to assume that you’re guilty and make you prove that you’re innocent.” The crush of claims has demanded of states not just more server capacity and call-center workers, but also an abrupt change in the premise of the safety net: Systems trained to treat each case as potentially fraudulent must now presume that millions have legitimately lost their jobs.

Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from COVID-19, the New York Times reported. Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing. The biggest push, business groups say, is to give companies enhanced protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection. Leaders of labor unions say limiting business liability will reward companies that are not taking adequate steps to ensure the safety of their workers and consumers. Republicans are pushing for the liability limitations as a way of stopping what they say are overzealous trial lawyers and giving business owners the certainty they need to reopen. Democratic leaders say they oppose any moves to undermine worker protections. In announcing that the Senate will return on May 4, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Monday there was an “urgent need” to enact legislation to shield businesses from pandemic-related legal liability if they reopen, citing the risk of “years of endless lawsuits” arising from “a massive tangle of federal and state laws.”

Facing an urgent financial crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and states nationwide are eyeing dramatic reductions to their workforces, threatening critical public-sector employees and first responders at a time when many Americans may need their local governments’ help the most, the Washington Post reported. Even as President Trump and top Republicans contend that only big-spending, liberal-leaning states are to blame for their mounting budget woes, a Washington Post review found that the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus is far more widespread — saddling Democratic and Republican mayors and governors alike with souring finances and major revenue gaps. Some local governments have already started laying off or furloughing thousands of their workers, and the numbers are likely to grow markedly in the absence of federal aid. Among municipalities, the new budget cuts could be profound: Between 300,000 and 1 million public-sector workers could soon be out of a job or sent home without pay, according to a new estimate from the National League of Cities. The steep reductions in staffing levels could affect education, sanitation, safety and health, local leaders warn, potentially leaving critical public services in utter disarray.

Roughly half of all U.S. workers stand to earn more in unemployment benefits than they did at their jobs before the coronavirus pandemic shut down wide swaths of the U.S. economy, and employers say that the government relief is complicating plans to reopen businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported. The package of coronavirus stimulus laws Congress passed and President Trump signed in March included a $600 boost to weekly unemployment benefits through July 31. As that support is added to state benefits over the coming weeks, the average weekly payment to a laid-off worker should rise to about $978 from the $377.97 the Labor Department said was paid on average late last year. Qualified workers will receive the government payout every week through July, and in most cases, the combined $978 weekly payout amounts to better pay than what many workers received before the crisis hit. Labor Department statistics show half of full-time workers earned $957 or less a week in the first quarter of 2020. The stimulus measure means many low-wage workers will avoid significant harm to their finances in the coming months. It puts money in consumers’ pockets and the U.S. economy on firmer footing to rebound once authorities allow businesses to reopen. But enhanced benefits also create disincentives that might hamper efforts by employers to recall workers when some states are trying to reopen their economies.

Hundreds of members of the U.S. House of Representatives will gather in Washington today to pass a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill, bringing the unprecedented total of funds approved for the crisis to nearly $3 trillion, Reuters reported. The measure is expected to be approved with solid bipartisan support in the Democratic-led House, but opposition by some members of both parties forced legislators to return to Washington despite stay-at-home orders intended to control the spread of the virus. The Republican-led Senate passed the legislation on Tuesday, so approval by the House will send it to the White House, where President Donald Trump has promised to quickly sign it into law. The bill — which would be the fourth passed to address the crisis — provides funds to small businesses and hospitals struggling with the economic toll of a pandemic that has killed more than 45,000 Americans and put more than 22 million out of work. Read more.

While the House is expected to approve an additional $320 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program today, there are concerns by lenders and small-business advocates that the funding still won’t be enough to meet demand for the coronavirus aid, the Wall Street Journal reported. Banks, credit unions and community-based lenders say that they have a backlog of applications for the PPP loans, after the roughly $350 billion allocated for the program ran out last week. “We believe our members have as many applications pending as they submitted during the initial round of funding, and the funds Congress is set to approve this week will likely all be used,” a spokesman for the Consumer Bankers Association said yesterday. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called on private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners to pay for health insurance for Art Van Furniture workers who lost coverage after the Midwestern retailer shut down, Bloomberg News reported. Art Van filed for bankruptcy last month and told workers they would have 90 days of coverage as the retailer slowly sold off its stores. But as the new coronavirus spread, many states forced stores to shut down, turning the company’s liquidation into more of a fire sale. The company later told employees they would lose insurance about six weeks earlier than planned. Workers sent a letter on Tuesday asking Thomas H. Lee Partners, Art Van’s private equity owner, to restore their health coverage. Tlaib, who represents a district in Michigan that includes parts of Detroit, is the latest politician to call for more help for workers at bankrupt companies. Thomas H. Lee Partners bought Art Van and its real estate in 2017 from founder Art Van Elslander for $612.5 million, according to bankruptcy documents. The private equity firm did not make back its investment on that deal by the time of the liquidation. Tlaib was a sponsor of the House of Representatives version of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren last year. That bill would put private-equity firms on the hook for the debt of companies they buy and elevate worker claims in bankruptcy.