Who is "us" in this? Many countries pay unemployment benefits to out-of-work workers and issue special corona-related payments too.

A large number of countries have millions of casual labourers who feed their families through daily wages earned doing informal random labour work. Nearly 81 percent of working people are employed in informal sector in india and fall out of any labour laws. These people and their families are out of work for about a month now and their meagre wages mean they hav nothing to fall back on these unemployed times. Results soon coming will include debt induced bonded labour for local financiers, labour trafficking and stravation.

It seems much worse in America for this than anywhere else. In Canada here we applied and were given $2000 a month immediately (I applied Apr 6 and it was already in my bank account Apr 8) and that will carry on for several months if needed. I feel bad for those in America that have applied a month ago and still waiting for a 1-time payment. No wonder people want to get back to work so quick, the government doesn't give a s**t about the citizens.

Which country are we talking about here? America?

In my opinion the best model is called Universal Basic Income. Before Covid it was still better, now it's critical. If you replace Welfare with UBI then people won't be afraid to get jobs (you lose welfare if you have a job, and oftentimes gas + childcare costs + loss of welfare makes you worse off with a job than without). And if you can't work e.g. because of medical reasons - or Covid - you won't die. As more and more jobs become automated and there simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, UBI has become more and more important. I hope that Covid can kick governments in the butt so they will start UBI programs.

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

This economic model one: has almost eliminated worldwide extreme poverty at a rate that blew away the UN's best hopes, and two: if nobody works then who will pay for all that you need? Will you do it for free and give it away? Didn't think so.