Hello and welcome to Slate Money COVID, our midweek update on the coronavirus crisis.

I'm Felix Salmon of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck of Huffpost.

Hello.

I'm here with Anna Shemanski of Breaking Views.

Hello.

And welcome, if that is the right word, to April.

It is now April.

It's the first of April, and that means it's rent day.

So we're going to talk all about rent and whether you should pay it.

Coming up on Slate Money, COVID.

So it's April the first. It's rent day. So let's talk a bit about rent day because obviously a bunch of people, millions of people, have lost their jobs. They

don't know when they might be able to start earning money again and rent is due today.

So, Emily, if you've lost your job and rent is due today, what are the considerations? Should

you be paying your rent or no? I hate to give financial advice to people,

but most states and cities have put up eviction moratoriums. So if you have very little money

saved up and you've lost your job, even if you have the money for rent, I would say don't pay your rent because you need

the money for food. And you're not going to get evicted right now, probably.

I would say definitely, like, before you don't pay your rent, make sure that you are in a state

where you have protections, because if you don't, you can very easily be evicted if you don't.

So I would just be very clear. I don't want to tell anyone not pay their rent and then they get

evicted. I'm going to push back a little bit on the very easily bit. I think if you're in a state

without protections, then you don't have state level protections and you can be evicted.

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