Breathing room in the short-term, priming for a Universal Basic Income in the long-term. This is a great way to get people used to the idea. Pretty soon, if they can keep this virus thing going, people will be so scared and feel so vulnerable financially they'll jump at the idea of guaranteed income, even if it's much lower than their usual, because their usual is 'unreliable'. All manufactured. In fact "manufacturing consent" is exactly what is happening here. There are many ways to make people do something, but the most successful are the ones in which people think they are making those decisions themselves and not being corralled, or tricked, into making them; which, of course, they are.