Been tested. Over 32,000 lives have been lost. President Trump Holding a series of meetings today on reopening the country. Much hes expressed his wishes to get americans back to work as quickly as possible. As continued unemployment ree. Andrew cuomo is continuing the new york pause plan for another month. The new york pause policies, the closed down policies will be extended in coordination with other states to may 15th. I dont want to project beyond that period. Thats about one month. One month is a long time. People need certainty and clarity so they can plan. I need a coordinated action plan with the other states. So one month will continue to close down policies. What happens after then, i dont know. We will see depending on what the data shows. And good day once again to you. Brian williams alongside electronically at least katy tur once again. Katy . And brian, the stock market dipped this morning following another day of devastating unemployment numbers. More than five million americans filed jobless claims last week. Bringing the four week total to roughly 22 million. That wipes out nearly all of the jobs created from february 2010 to february 2020. Virtually all the gains since the Great Recession now gone. Today the Small Business administration announced the pay tecti Check Protection Program ran out of money. They approved 349 billion, over 1. 6 million loans. The equivalent of what would normally be 14 years worth of cash lent in just 14 days. But with more than 30 million Small Businesses across the country untold numbers are now left in the dark. Lets get right to our reporters covering the health of the economy and what in the world comes next, lets begin in california with nbc news correspondent joe kent. Shes outside an Unemployment Office near los angeles. So, jo, the numbers are giant. But then again, there are so many people who have not been able to file because the systems keep on breaking down. What are you hearing out there . Well, if you are able to make that application, even if you dont get your unemployment money, what we do know is that those numbers are counted within the 22 million over the past four weeks. Just to give you some perspective on that number, that is far more than the previous record over the past four week period. 2. 7 million back in 1982. So the drama and the severity of this number is very real. I so we want to know how state Unemployment Offices are handling the backlog, bottle necks, challenges of processing such high volume. We talked to the director of labor in michigan which has the highest percentage of unemployed people, a quarter of the workforce is out of work. This is what he says theyre doing to improve things. We shifted staff, we hired new staff ourselves, so were throwing everything we can at processing the claims. The director of the department of labor there in michigan telling me he is working with big Tech Companies, quicken loans, ibm among the vendors. Theyre trying to bring them in to modernize their systems. But, brian and katy this is a very big problem across the country as unemployment state directors are telling me they are building this plane as they are flying it. We want to turn to texas. Hes at a mobile food bank in dallas where they get 300 cars on a normal day. Today, upwards of 2,000. Garret, all we can anticipate about the stories in that line is that these are people who never visited a food bank so many of them and never dreamed that they would rely on a food bank for food. Yeah, brian, thats right. The last time they ran this food bank, the home of the cotton bowl, the state fair of texas, 70 periods of the people coming to pick up food had never had to rely on a food bank before. I suspect that number will be even higher today as texas continues to be a state. Youre likely to know somebody or be yourself laid off or put out of a job and know somebody thats become very sick. As i talked to people who have been coming through this line today, the need is really acute. People doing whatever they can to feed their families. And trying to make ends meet for a little longer. Let me talk to a woman that is picking up food for her sons and grandchildren. Its very hard. Its very hard. Because hes behind on his car payment. Hes behind on insurance. No Health Insurance anymore. And so, you know, so with one son working, you know, its kind of its difficult. But were managing. I mean, you know, its difficult. Its a worry. Its a worry for sure. You dont know when its going to get back to what it used to be. You heard it a little bit there just like you heard from governor cuomo. Part of the problem is uncertainty. I talked to people who said i may have some savings left. I may have a few other things i can cut back on. I dont know how long im budgeting for. I dont know how far out i have to go to make things work. That is true even of the food banks trying to feed their neighbors. Theyre trying to figure out their budgets. Theyre trying to make sure that theyre still able to do this and they urged me and ill urge you if can you donate, please do. Donate your money. Its even more important than your time or your own goods. They can buy in bulk. They can use that to turn around and feed neighbors, neighbors that may be suffering brian and katy far worse than most people realize. Garret, thank you for bringing that to our attention. Lets bring in msnbc Business Correspondent and host. Coming off that, those bread lines, unemployment numbers we keep getting on thursday. Its been over a month since the president declared a national disaster. And the news keeps getting worse and worse. What are economists predicting . What are they expecting . Yeah. I spoke with one economist who said she had a visceral, emotional reaction to seeing that first number from four weeks ago. I think its important as we talk about this an aggregate the last four weeks just to look at each one of these weeks and specific to see the kind of read that we saw today alone would be astonishing, to see how it compounded over the last month is really incredible. Jo just a moment ago talking about the severity of this, the drama of the numbers. It really is something that economists have not had to wrestle will with or reckon with before. Theyre fumbling here, looking for historic land logs, looking for any examples from the past they can forecast what can happen here in these coming weeks and months. And there really is no suitable an log. Now you look at the policy side and there is some indications that that has been executed well and thoughtfully. A big goal of fiscal policy during this crisis has been to keep the connective tissue alive as tenuous as it is between employers and employees who have been let go. There is this hope among policymakers that when things start to turn, those employers will rehire those who they had to let go. Now what makes this so tricky, katy and brian is the fact that hiring takes time. Folks are applying for the benefits and dealing with the bottle necks weve seen in california and states across the country as well. Now the number that were looking at today is an initial jobless claim. That is somebody who goes and applies for ben for the first time. What economists are going to look at as this crisis wears on are continued jobless claims. That is those who applied for jobless benefits and are in the pipeline and remain in the pipeline. The hope is as this wears on that well see that number begin to drop. Were far from that happening. The perspective is that they expect a surge at the beginning. That surge of claims is larger and lasting longer than most of them expected. Well, im curious about potentially that flattening off or dropping out. We saw what the sba today is that payment Protection Program has now run out of money. Part of the goal with that was to get people back on payroll. They handed out i believe 1. 7 million loans. There are 30 million Small Businesses across the country. What is the expectation for how much of a dent thats going to put into the unemployment numbers . Yeah. The hope with that plan was that you would have businesses, again, eager to hire back whom those they let go because they have to keep the head count to get it was to get that loan forgiven. I imagine a lot of the business owners, the laid off employees are perplexed by what happened here and the politics in washington as well. They would like more than anything else to be employed, to have businesses up and running again. Its clear there was demand for that program. For that paycheck program. And that demand still exists. Those with whom i spoke have said that they are frustrated by the fact that mechanisms are not as good as they could be. We saw the fits and starts at the beginning of the program. They persisted throughout. Yes, there are accommodations. Yes as joe mentioned, Tech Companies are stepping in to correct the systems that are in place. But to make this work, again, to revive or restore that connective tissue, this has to work more efficiently and has to be bigger than it s its interesting. Ive been talking about fiscal policy on the Monetary Policy side. When you listen to jay powell, the chair of the federal reserve, hes not advising the congress on what to do. He is indicating that there is a need for fiscal policy. That were still in the early days of this crisis. Hes not making a policy prescription. But he is indicating that as this plays out, katy and brian, there is a need for more fiscal policy that law makers in washington have to do a whole lot more. David, thank you. And joining us now is m. I. T. Economics professor. Also happened to be one of the architects of obamacare back in the day. Professor, i have way more questions than question answer, im sure in, one segment. Ill throw a bunch of them at you for starters. What is the definition of a depression versus the recession. Do you have any measurement of how far along in this thing we are economically and where the floor is . The main thing is whether Economic Growth slows or reverses and over how long a period it lasts. We dont note floor. We have to remember, the numbers are scary. Theyre at one level bigger than were used to because we expanded the Unemployment Insurance system to be available to whole range of workers who cant access it before. On the other hand, there is still workers out of the labor force that havent applied. I think the important thing to recognize, brian, is that we are stuck between two different approaches in helping our economy. One approach, well call it the european approach, is bail out the firms approach. What European Countries are doing is say, look, well pay your bills. Well pay for your workers. Keep them own the payroll. The other approach we can call the u. S. Approach, is bail out the workers. Saying to firms, look, lay off workers, well send them Unemployment Insurance, well send them a ubi check. Were trying a mix of the two. Its yet to see how well it will work. What would your suggestion be if you were talking to members of congress about how next thou go forward and what next to try to tackle . First of all, we need to address the Health Care Sectors problems here. The Health Care Sector is getting hammered, Long Term Care facilities are getting hammered. There is 100 billion in the original cares act to help those facilities. We need much, much more. It needs to be given out in a way that reflects the needs of the Health Care Sector. Second, with very to recognize the fact the job losses are coming with massive increases in uninsurance at exactly the worst possible time. Fortunate lishgs at fordable care act was set up for exactly the situation to help provide options for people who lost their insurance. But the options need to be made available, the government needs to open up the exchanges and they need to be affordable. We need more subsidies to make them more affordable. We have to recognize this is going to take enormous redistribution to our state and local governments. The organizations are really holding comet together right now down to people trying to administer the ui programs in the face of 22 million new claims. We need to get federal distribution to the programs so they can continue to run. Professor, i know this question kind of informs everything were hearing and seeing out of the white house every day. But from a lay person perspective, can we afford this . Can we afford the cost of the save . We absolutely can. And we have to. Heres the point. Its not really a question of, gee, weve done a bunch. Lets shut it off f we shut it off now, we dont flatten the curve. We just delay the curve. Well be back at this at the worst peak in i afew months. Its going to limit our functioning for at least another year. I think well have to recognize that. I think you have a phone call there, jonathan. If i may ask one more quick question, hopefully that phone will stop ringing. Dont worry. Our National Debt is very, very high as it is. And these numbers that are being thrown out there, almost have no meaning there so large. Trillions of dollars in stimulus or life line. How much further in debt can this country go safely . Is there a limit . You know, were at an era of low Interest Rates. Economists thought for 20 years, been waiting for Interest Rates to go up as the deficits go up. And then come down as the deficits come back down. We have seen a new era and sort of weakening the relationship between the size of the deficit and Interest Rates. As a result, the economic profession really shifted the view on this which is that we can have a much larger debt level that we thought we could previously. Were not near dmind of limit. We have room to do more. That said, eventually, well have to pay this back. I think well have to recognize that now is the time for action. But we should also move on a bipartisan basis forward on both plans to save the economy but also in the long run try to set up in a bipartisan basis plans to pay this back. We cant afford it. But only if we can do this in a way where politics doesnt get in the way of actually paying it back. That seems like a big ask these days. You can call that person back. The new technology that can show whether stay at home orders are working and where the virus may go next. Plus, the growing resistance to stay at home orders. Crowds defy the governor to protest in michigan. What is the nationwide risk if these demands are met by these protesters . . First though, were going to take you to new jersey. A heartbreaking discovery shows us just how devastating as if you didnt already know, this virus has been for americas nursing homes. S virus has been for americas nursing hos. Me hey allergy muddlers. Achoo do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. Zyrtec starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec. Muddle no more. And try zyrtecd for proven relief of your allergies, sinus pressure, and congestion. Some Companies Still have hr stuck between employeesentering data. A. Changing data. More and more sensitive, personal data. And it doesnt just drag hr down. It drags the entire business down with inefficiency, errors and waste. Its ridiculous. So ridiculous. With paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single, easy to use software. Visit paycom. Com, and schedule your demo today. And look, it feels like im just im sewasting time. Nfo on options trading, thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. And it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. So its like my streaming service. Well except now, youre binge learning. For a limited time, get up to 800 when you open and fund an account. Call 8663009417 or visit tdameritrade. Com learn. As the coronavirus continues to take a devastating toll on nursing homes, House Democrats are urging the trump ago administration to start tracking deaths at those facilities. And nbc news investigation and there is more than 600 coronavirus deaths linked to nursing homes. And there are 400 facilities across the country. The numbers are likely higher because the federal government is not tracking those cases. And today there is a heartbreaking and there is a test in new jersey, a lip led them to find 17 bodies crowded in a morgue meant to fit only four bodies at a nursing home in andover. R ron allen, how did this happen and what is the nursing home saying about it . Will with, its just an incredibly tragic situation, katy. The alarm bell started going off over the weekend when a local congressman says he got a call from an administrator there saying they were desperately in need of body bags. There was an anonymous call that said a body was discovered in and out a shed. That turned out not to be true. When local authorities did get there, they found a dozen bodies, the numbers are elusive, in a morgue that was supposed to handle fewer bodies. Now the owner of the nursing home is saying there was a backlog created by the Holiday Weekend and by the above average number of people who were losing their lives there because of covid19. Bottom line is there is a lot of death at this facility. There are a lot of people sick at this point the numbers are, like as many as 35 deaths since march and as many as 130 residents who are still infected with the virus. A little while ago, governor murphy of new jersey spoke out about this and said this is not something that is acceptable. Heres the comments. I am am also outraged that bodies of the dead were allowed to pile up in a make shift morgue at the facility. New jersey living in a Long Term Care facilities deserve tore cared for with respect and compassion and dignity. We can and must do better. Ive asked them to look no a review for the disproportionate number of deaths during the covid19 outbreak. The state has sent monitors to the facility to keep an eye on things. Th