The push in some states to reopen comes as more than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in just over a month, a number expected to rise by another few million when the Labor Department releases new weekly data Thursday morning. Layoffs and furloughs have hit nearly every industry, but the leisure and hospitality sector has suffered the most.

Once they start receiving unemployment benefits, workers are required by statute to accept any suitable offers of work; turning one down would mean losing eligibility for further aid. It’s a federal rule but one that states are given broad leeway to carry out.

As they roll out plans to reopen, some states like Colorado are trying to find ways to ensure workers can stay on unemployment benefits if their workplaces are genuinely unsafe. But a growing number of states have made clear that refusing to return to work because of concerns of catching Covid-19 is not an acceptable reason to stay home.

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said doing so would be considered a “voluntary quit” and emphasized that employers must report such incidents to the state’s Workforce Development agency. South Carolina and Tennessee both have notices on their websites noting that workers refusing to return will lose unemployment aid the same week they turn down an offer. And in Georgia — which began its push to reopen so early that even Trump criticized it as “too soon” — the state Department of Labor is encouraging employers to work with employees to negotiate a back-to-work plan both parties can live with, acknowledging that workers otherwise are out of luck.

“There are many reasons that an employee could potentially be eligible for unemployment. Feeling unsafe in the workplace is not one,” said Kersha Cartwright, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Labor. “It sounds harsh, but that’s in the guidelines.”

There are some exceptions that allow employees to turn down offers to return to work and continue receiving aid. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance under the CARES Act, for example, extended benefits to Americans unable to work for a host of pandemic-related reasons, including because they or someone they are taking care of is sick with the coronavirus.

Workers could also try to argue that conditions are no longer safe “and try to refuse work in the first place instead of going in,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project. “That might be a hard case to make in some states, though.”