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  • It's a lovely day.

  • I'd say you'd imagine that the bar would impact David Clarke can't believe what's happening.

  • He's worried his whole livelihood is about to disappear.

  • It's surreal.

  • We're gonna have to wrap up the bar for the foreseeable future.

  • So all the taps are empty right now.

  • Nothing as millions face unemployment tonight, stories from some of the first to be hit hard.

  • Those in the service industry were more than seven million.

  • Workers are facing lost wages, unemployment, even bankruptcy.

  • Copa nineteen's an economic tsunami from hotel workers.

  • I'm a single mom of tree.

  • I really don't know what I'm gonna use to put food on the table to restaurant servers was laid off just recently.

  • Small business owners, because we do work on tips, a lot of us are left with little to no income.

  • Most of us don't have a huge cushion to fit on their industry scrambling to adapt after at least 20 states have closed restaurants and bars to dining, customers do the pickup.

  • Is there another creative way to reach people?

  • A ticking clock as covert 19 continues to tighten its grip.

  • All the lights are coming on today as the number of workers applying for unemployment skyrocketed, Washington passed a new relief plan.

  • The center is not going to leave small business for the workers.

  • The stimulus package is supposed to help its assistance they desperately need.

  • But it may not be enough.

  • We have seen dramatic layoffs in our industry.

  • You know, we represent workers in hotels, casinos, restaurants, bars, stadiums, arenas and virtually everything has closed.

  • Wendy Walsh works for Unite Here, a labor union that represents 300,000 working people from across North America.

  • Many of our workers work two or three jobs and are now laid off from all of those jobs.

  • Many of their members are immigrants, women of color who are already vulnerable in San Francisco, where the city's under lock down housekeeper Larra Lou Corumba, a single mother of three, hasn't worked in two weeks.

  • We're just here in the room.

  • My daughter is just, uh, finish her brutal glasses, and my son also just finished his homework.

  • Any kind of help from the government is really for the workers first, because we really needed she hopes her employer, a major hotel chain, will allow them more paid sick time.

  • We shouldn't have lost our health insurance, especially in times of this, that everybody's skating seek to help fill in the gaps.

  • In Los Angeles, local nonprofits are hosting a food bank for the Unite Your members.

  • I think this really is a moment where we should ask ourselves as airlines air going to the federal government for toe ask for billions of dollars in bailout money.

  • How is it possible that the food service workers who are preparing the food for those planes don't have access to affordable health care?

  • This is just a moment that really highlights was already broken in the country, and this has to be the time to fix it.

  • Small business owners are feeling the burn to your bar is completely empty.

  • What does that feel like?

  • It's a good feeling.

  • It's a horrible feeling.

  • Tom Coburn is one of the owners of Cooper's, a pub in New York City's East Village forced to close amid a temporary ban on restaurants and bars, life altering not just for Tom, but his staff of 35 people.

  • How did you break the news to your employees?

  • We just told him straight out.

  • Whatever.

  • They came into work that very, very unfortunate.

  • But there wasn't anything we could do about it.

  • And how did they react?

  • They were shocked.

  • A lot of them.

  • There were some of them.

  • I see the writing on the wall because from other places that are already closed.

  • But I'm many of them are.

  • They were shocked yesterday would have been one of the bars biggest days of the year celebrating ST Patrick's Day.

  • But now the general manager, Nelson Rivermen Ada, is trying to figure out what happens next.

  • So what are you gonna d'oh while the bar's closed?

  • Uh, heaven, I'm probably gonna fire for unemployment for the time being, right at the moment, just helping my co workers filling their unemployment files.

  • Are you worried for you and your co workers?

  • Yeah.

  • Yes, I am.

  • Ah, feel them.

  • I don't really have.

  • Like, the stability on is I don't know.

  • I wish I can do more for them, But you just seem limited as well.

  • I'm gonna be doublet.

  • I am jobless now.

  • So small businesses are critical to the economy.

  • They employ nearly half of all Americans.

  • It'll be unearth quake, A financial earthquake for half of all Americans.

  • if small businesses don't get the help that they need very soon.

  • All right, just put it in the kitchen, George.

  • And then we'll feel with that later.

  • Many restaurants and bars air trying to stay afloat by offering takeout and delivery like Angela Marsden in L.

  • A.

  • We have so many loyal customers, and they're all calling to see how we're doing.

  • Hey, Dan, are you?

  • It's a ensure you coming out.

  • Are you guys ordering today?

  • Because we are open?

  • I just want to let you know.

  • But making that transition is difficult for businesses that are built on bringing people together.

  • Miss Barr has been here since 1978 and, um, it means a lot to me and to people of the neighborhood day.

  • One of her new normal was not encouraging.

  • You know, it's I don't know, almost five o'clock and we're open from 11 8 and we only have $140 in sales.

  • And that doesn't even cover the two people that were trying to keep, you know, employed today.

  • Things are a little bit better.

  • Thanks guys of you.

  • Thank you, Dan.

  • By with a slight uptick in takeout sales big question now does anybody know what the long term effects on the economy will be?

  • The's stock market dropping again today and even temporarily halting trading experts fear were spiraling into another recession.

  • The stock market is saying recession economists, including myself, are saying, Yeah, we're in recession.

  • The Senate is hoping that the multibillion dollar emergency aid package they passed today, which expands paid emergency, leave food security programs and bolsters unemployment insurance, will help.

  • Now lawmakers air focused on the next step a $1 trillion stimulus plan, which includes $500 billion in direct payments to the public, 50 billion to bail out the airline industry and 300 billion for small business loans.

  • $1000.

  • $2000 check.

  • Maybe that's the start.

  • See how it goes?

  • Uh, the virus let last for longer than more money.

  • But some say Washington needs to get even more aggressive and soon waiting to pay rent Another mother.

  • We need to feel herself.

  • We need toe Jenna daily expenses in the long term.

  • I don't know.

  • We still need to get a job.

  • We're still need to get back on your feet.

  • Do you think you can make it through this?

  • I don't know.

  • He hope.

  • I hope.

  • Yeah, I don't know if I can make it, but I will do my best.

  • Like I've been lucky.

  • Have had some loyal customers.

  • Stop in.

  • Um, I have some lawyers from the courthouse there.

  • They've been faithful.

  • They've ordered every day, so hopefully they'll still order today.

  • But we'll see our thanks to Diane Macedo.

  • And now I want to turn to our next guest, Holly Kennington from Spartanburg, South Carolina.

  • Holly's a single mom who used to work as a bartender until two weeks ago, as news of the virus was spreading, she had to make a gut wrenching choice between her job and her son's safety.

  • He's immuno compromised with a life threatening brain disease.

  • I spoke to her earlier tonight.

  • Holly.

  • First of all, thanks for joining us.

  • Clearly, Cove, it made it impossible for you to keep working.

  • I know you don't see it as a choice between a paycheck and your son, and yet that was your choice.

  • That what?

  • That was my choice.

  • And I would absolutely make it over again.

  • This past week, the governor of our state has made it a mandate that all bars and restaurants are takeout only.

  • So it's not just me that's lost their job.

  • Are we going to have a job when we go back or not?

  • And I know that for you, your job isn't just a paycheck.

  • It's your community, these air, your friends.

  • It's the only slice of adult normal wife that is left.

  • I'm somewhat used to isolation now.

  • It could be a struggle, you know, today in Congress, they were arguing over.

  • Should we send $1000 to every American for relief?

  • What could you do with that money?

  • I could pay my car insurance for several months.

  • Um, I could pay rent, but $1000?

  • Be honest.

  • Not a whole lot in terms of Brent as dark as her life can feel.

  • Sometimes today she got just a little bit of sunshine, a regular customers banding together, rounding up over $120.

  • A coworker drove over an hour just to drop it off in her mailbox.

  • That was a lot of twenties in that tip jar for you.

  • What was it like when you saw that money that your regulars wanted to deliver to you.

  • I don't know.

  • How do we explain?

  • Um, soothing.

  • It is comforting and relieving.

  • And right now, when you wake up and go to bed afraid every day in a bit of relief you're granted is something worth thinking that for as a mom, it's really scary to know that there's nothing you can do.

  • Um, with Corona virus, I actually have something that I can do that keep him.

  • I saluted and it gives me a little bit of ownership over.

  • It gives you a little control.

  • Yeah, Thanks again, Holly.

  • I can't thank you enough for joining us.

  • As I say you are in our hearts.

  • Be well, hang tight and we'll be throughout you.

  • Hi, everyone.

  • George Stephanopoulos here.

  • Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel.

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It's a lovely day.

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