Marketplace

Banks began accepting applications for $320 billion in new emergency payroll protection loans this morning. Last time, the process was unclear and bottlenecked. How’d things go today? We spent the day calling banks and small businesses to find out. Plus: The view from Shanghai, surprising essential businesses and why the stock market is not the economy.

Throughout the economy, you’re seeing businesses pivot in response to COVID-19. Auto plants are making ventilators, distilleries are making hand sanitizer and many clothing retailers are making masks. Plus: that Congressional Budget Office report about how bad things will get, what happens when bodegas close down and love in the time of coronavirus.

With 27 million jobs vaporized in just five weeks, economists, analysts and other observers are realizing that quarterly and monthly economic data just isn’t cutting it anymore. Today, we look at how looking at the economy has changed. Plus: the need for more contact tracers, the states leading on small business loans and putting a dollar value on human life.

How’s your savings account looking? According to the data, not great. But it’s not your fault. Today, we’ll look at the cultural and economic forces that make Americans bad at saving money. Plus: how businesses are preparing to reopen, state funding in a crisis and Netflix is (surprise!) doing pretty well right now.

Home health care workers are fighting COVID-19 by trying to keep their clients out of emergency rooms, which sometimes means quarantining with them. Plus: Oil’s storage shortage, declining home sales and how we talk to each other on Venmo now.

U.S. crude oil prices plunged into negative territory today for the first time, falling to minus $37.63 per barrel. That’s possible because storage is the most valuable commodity in the commodity market. We’ll explain. Plus: how experts reckon with COVID-19’s impact on GDP and a conversation with a banker who’s giving small business loans.

China’s first-quarter GDP contracted for the first time since 1992, and a new survey shows more American executives seeing the two countries “decoupling” economically. Today we look at another dimension of the pandemic and what it means for global supply chains. Plus: what it’s like to run an unemployment insurance program right now.

Five million more people filed for unemployment insurance last week, bringing the total past 20 million for the month. But the real number is actually much higher. Today, we look at who isn’t counted. Plus, earnings season’s new “COVID metrics,” the New Yorkers not paying rent and the high delivery app fees squeezing restaurants.

As of today, the Small Business Administration’s pandemic emergency lending program has approved more than 1.3 million loan applications worth nearly $300 billion. We’ll check in on the state of the program and some businesses that have applied. Plus, the spring clothing stranded in stores, coronavirus’ effect on college admissions and the country’s yeast shortage.

In a normal year, the nation’s procrastinators would be firing up tax software or digging around for a W-2 tonight. But now that tax day is delayed three months, there’s a different kind of chaos unfolding for accountants. Plus: a new IMF outlook, the challenges of managing staff remotely and an unexpected essential business: livestock auctions.

Whether it’s TP or a Nintendo Switch, if you’ve had trouble finding an item in stores or online recently, it all comes back to the supply chain. Today, we’ll break it down. Plus: The U.S. Postal Service’s financial trouble, how social distancing is changing the urban landscape and a conversation with the CEO of Feeding America.

As state after state encourages people to stay home, therapists and psychiatrists have moved their practices onto the internet and over the phone. While mental health care can make that switch relatively easily, getting it covered is another matter. Plus, America’s truck driver shortage and the psychology of app-based tipping.

About 17 million Americans filed unemployment claims in the past three weeks and the actual number of jobs lost is almost certainly higher. Today, we’ll try to figure out how high unemployment might go by the summer. Plus: how food banks are coping with the crisis and how credit markets might indicate recession.

People of color are being hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic, in part because they are disproportionally represented among frontline workers. Today, we do the numbers on this country’s labor force and how workers’ families are affected. Plus, converting hotels into homeless shelters, when unemployment turns recession into depression and our new embrace of processed food.

With so many “essential” workers putting themselves at risk, hazard pay has become a national topic of debate. Today, we’ll spend some time looking at exactly what it is and how it’s used. Plus, we explain deflation, the new distressed property market and why unemployment numbers are even higher than the data suggests.