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More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s. Roughly 30.3 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the six weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, and it’s by far the worst string of layoffs on record. It adds up to more than one in six American workers. (Rugaber, 4/30)

After peaking at 6.9 million in the last week of March, claims have fallen each of the last four weeks — an encouraging sign that at least things aren't getting worse. But overall, joblessness remains a dire problem. Friday marks May 1, and for millions of Americans, rents and mortgage payments will be due. Unemployment benefits are one of the key forms of financial aid that are helping families plug the gap. (Tappe, 4/30)

First-time filings for unemployment insurance hit 3.84 million last week as the wave of economic pain continues, though the worst appears to be in the past, according to Labor Department figures Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 3.5 million. (Cox, 4/30)

Continuing claims, or the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits, rose by 2.17 million to a record 18 million in the week ended April 18. That sent the insured unemployment rate -- which measures the unemployed receiving benefits as a share of the labor market -- to a record 12.4%, compared with 1.2% before the crisis. Florida had the most claims last week, with an estimated 432,500 on an unadjusted basis, followed by California at 328,000 and Georgia at 264,800. Most states reported declines. (Dmitrieva, 4/30)

The unprecedented surge in layoffs has pushed the unemployment rate above 15% to the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s, economists estimate. The official jobless rate will be released next week with the Labor Department’s employment report for April. (Bartash, 4/30)

The Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims report on Thursday followed news on Wednesday that the economy in the first quarter suffered its sharpest contraction since the Great Recession. This ended the longest expansion in the United States’ history as the economy reels from nationwide lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus. (Mutikani, 4/30)

Connecticut was more than halfway through a multiyear modernization of its unemployment insurance system in mid-March when the coronavirus pandemic triggered a surge in claims and the state website that accepts applications froze. Labor department personnel worked all night trying to figure out what had gone wrong and realized the website could only handle up to 8,300 applications in a single day, a fraction of what residents were now trying to submit. After fixing that problem, they tried to figure out what might break next, said Danté Bartolomeo, deputy commissioner of Connecticut’s labor department. (Chaney and King, 4/30)

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. 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. (Badger and Parlapiano, 4/30)

Americans may soon face a stark choice as more states begin to reopen their doors: Go back to work and risk catching the coronavirus, or stay home and lose unemployment aid. As governors allow more businesses and retail stores to come back online, employers will begin calling back workers who had been laid off or furloughed and were eligible for unemployment benefits. If they refuse the offer to return to work out of fear for their health amid the pandemic, federal guidelines dictate that they will lose the aid that many have only just started to receive. (Cassella and Ehley, 4/29)

The coronavirus pandemic officially snapped the United States’ economic growth streak in the first three months of the year. The question now is how deep the damage will get — and how long the country will take to recover. U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services output, fell at a 4.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter of the year, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That is the first decline since 2014, and the worst quarterly contraction since 2008, when the country was in a deep recession. (Casselman, 4/29)

The head of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday dashed lingering hopes for a fast rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, saying the U.S. economy could feel the weight of consumer fear and social distancing for a year or more in a prolonged climb from a deepening hole. (Dunsmuir and Saphir, 4/29)

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, struck a worried tone at his first regularly scheduled news conference since the coronavirus shuttered the United States economy, calling the job losses taking hold “heartbreaking” and predicting a long road ahead. Mr. Powell, who had been presiding over the longest economic expansion on record, has watched as the strongest labor market in generations slipped away. More than 26 million workers have lost jobs as quarantines and lockdowns close businesses, sapping the fuel from a consumer-driven economy. (Smialek, 4/29)