. >>> let's drill down on some tough economic numbers we saw this morning with chris lu, former deputy secretary of labor in the obama administration, now senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center, joining us. chris, good to see you. that jobs report -- and it's a backward look at 4.4% unemployment in march when the virus was just beginning to spread. we and have the reached a peak yet, even the hot spot of new york city. so it's going to be only a lot worse next week, perhaps yesterday's unemployment claims, numbers and the last two weeks of 10 million is a more accurate picture. >> that's exactly right, andrea. we have to put this job support in context. this is a snapshot of what was happening the second week of march. so this was before many states imposed shelter-at-home requirements so we are expecting a bad number but i don't think we expected 700,000 jobs being lost. that's a drastic number. the unemployment rate went up more than any time since 1975. and i think this is just the tiff of ttip of the iceberg in terms of bad economic numbers. 2/3 were in leisure a

chris lu is a former deputy labor secretary in the obama administration. diane swong is the chief economist at grant thornton. >>> the trump administration backtracked last night on new rules to get relief checks out to people. now saying that social security recipients will not have to file a tax return in order to receive a payment. this move comes in response to pressure from elderly americans and senators to rescind the guidance that was issued on monday that said seniors are going to need to file a simple return to get the checks of up to $1,200 even if they weren't ordinarily required to file taxes. as a reminder, if you've got questions about your relief check and this should clear up some of them, tweet them to ben popkin or me. please put the hashtag velshi in it. ben and i will try to answer a lot of your questions directly on twitter. >>> after months of downplaying the potentially devastating impacts of coronavirus, president trump's warnings to people to stay at home seem to have motivated some state governments to finally take aggressive acti

. >>> joining me is chris lu. he's now a senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center. good to see you, but it's on a bad news day. we always come to you with all of this bad news. the unemployment numbers, what strikes you the most? they were about what you predicted. what's happened to all these job gains, and where do we go from here? >> the number was lower than the peak we've seen a couple of weeks ago but we need to put this in perspective. even the 4.4 million people filing for unemployment is about seven times higher than anything we've seen over the great recession. and we continue to hear reports from states about people being unable to apply for unemployment. and on top of that, this doesn't count the millions of americans whose hours have been cut because of covid-19. so this -- these numbers are bad and i think they'll continue to stay bad for the next couple of weeks at least. and i think we're going to start to see a wave of furloughs and layoffs coming from state and local government. as you mentioned earlier, this package that congress is about to pass

joining us is chris lu, former secretary of the obama administration. welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> so what do you think is going to make the difference between bars and hotels and theme parks and such regaining those lost jobs? i'm hoping they're not gone for good. but if they're not gone for good, what's going to make the biggest difference in bringing them back? >> first and foremost, this is a public health crisis and so you can't really fully assess the economic damage until we get past this public health crisis. that might be for the rest of this month, it might be several more months. so what's important right now is to provide a level of financial stability to all unemployed workers. 10 million people have been out of work so far and we think those numbers are going to go straight up as well as the small businesses that have to shutdown. as long as we can provide that financial stability to them, i think we have a better chance of getting out of this when the economy opens back up. this has never been done before. we've never shut off

joining me to dig in, ben white, chief economic correspondent for politico and chris lu. ben, let's start on congress. they have all the best of intentions as far as the c.a.r.e.s. act. what they want to do to create enough economic stimulus to save big business, small business and individuals. but if there is not more oversight before we start doling out more money and more money, isn't there a risk that the money isn't ending up in the right places? you and i were both here for 2008, right? subprime lending didn't start off bad, but in the end, when no bankers were in trouble and people still lost their homes, this country was outraged and no bankers went to jail because they didn't break any laws. if we don't tighten the screws on paycheck protection program, on corporate oversight, isn't this a recipe for disaster? >> it quite possibly is. stephanie, you and i both are laser focused on tracking where this money is going, who is getting it, how it's getting used. essentially there's one guy now on this panel that's supposed to track all $2.2 trillion, which is an absur

and chris lu, he was deputy labor secretary during the obama administration.s now a senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center. congressman, thank you. welcome back. let's talk about this program because even if you get this $250 billion, i can promise you because i've done the homework there is zero chance it meets the demand. it's going to run out basically immediately. what do you do after that? >> well, thank you so much for having me, and i hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and strong. there's a few things that we have to consider right now. the first point is that you are absolutely correct. this program has got to be made fair, as well as stronger. it shouldn't just favor people with incredibly strong connections to banks. but we also cannot forget about the fact that this is overall an economic crisis catalyzed by a pandemic. and until we address that pandemic and build out a health care infrastructure complete with expanded hospital capacity, expanded testing and contact tracing, we stand no hope of escaping out of this econ

joining us now, senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center, chris lu, he served under ion. chris, great to have you with us. 26.5 million americans, more than 26 million americans in just over the last month have filed for unemployment. another dark day of economic news today with 4.43 million claims last week. >> and willie, while this 4.4 million number is below its peak of a couple of weeks ago, this is about six to seven times higher than we ever saw during the great recession. and when you try to extrapolate the numbers out, we're probably looking right now at an unemployment rate of between 16% and 20% which is historic. and we know that the numbers probably don't fully capture the economic pain, it doesn't capture the millions who continue to have their hours cut because of covid-19. we continue to hear about people who are unable it apply for unemployment insurance because state systems are overloaded. and we're going to continue to see wave after wave of people being laid off. the next thing that i'm looking at right now is state and local governments which are

. >> chris lu, you were deputy secretary of lane under president obama.e working with this administration as deputy secretary of labor. we just passed last week a $2.2 trillion package to help small businesses and to get money into people's pockets. nancy pelosi already talking about a fourth piece of legislation. but if you are sitting at that table this morning, where is your priority in helping this recovery that as the data from the last two days have shown us is cratering? >> you know, our priority right now needs to be providing a level of financial stability to millions of families that are sheltering in place right now. if we really want to get passed this public health crisis which is essential to getting the economy up and running, people needs to stay home. that means they need money in their pocket to buy groceries and pay rent. so we call this a lot a stimulus package, what we just passed, it is really a relief package. we need to continue thinking in terms of additional relief as long as this public health crisis goes on, but what is also cr

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