“President Trump has asked for aid to the airlines, which have already taken a huge hit. In practice, this would mean bailing out their shareholders. Here’s why I’m not terribly sympathetic to this idea: Airlines have access to major capital markets. They have managed to continue operations through many, many rounds of bankruptcies before, with little noticeable effect for customers or the rest of the economy…

“The same is not generally true for millions of small- and medium-sized companies — which are more likely to go out of business altogether, and take with them all the jobs on their payrolls. Compared to their larger counterparts, smaller businesses tend to operate on thinner margins and with smaller cash reserves… Just as lawmakers are leaning toward direct payments rather than loans to households, they might consider giving grants of some kind to businesses, too.”
Catherine Rampell, Washington Post

“Unless a business has been forced to fully close, there’s a way to keep workers on the payroll, ease the pain of a downturn and speed economic recovery. It’s called ‘work-sharing.’… Employers experiencing a temporary reduction in business agree to cut employees’ hours instead of laying off workers entirely. Employees on reduced hours receive unemployment benefits in proportion to the reduction in their hours. Businesses benefit by retaining valued employees and avoiding recruitment and training costs when economic conditions return to normal. Workers benefit by retaining most of their income and access to health insurance — a critical factor in a public health-triggered economic crisis like this one.”
Katharine G. Abraham and Susan N. Housman, Politico

“Governments should directly assume the debt of high-risk households. Trying to incentivise financial intermediaries to modify the terms of existing loans, as the US government did with the Home Affordable Modification Program after the 2008 crisis, will be too slow to meet the current challenge. It’s often said that the public health of the majority is determined by the most vulnerable in society. The same logic applies to a healthy political and economic system: its stability depends on how it treats its weakest members. Hedging our bets on an economic system that has neglected these truths and instead prioritised wealth creation at the top has put us all at risk.”
Katharina Pistor, The Guardian

Some argue that “A recovery package could simply—and probably unsuccessfully—try to get the economy back up to where it was before the Covid-19 shutdowns took hold, complete with its decades of wage stagnation, exploding carbon emissions, and staggering inequality. Or, with politicians newly willing to spend, it could build a carbon-neutral, significantly stronger and fairer society—and put millions to work doing it… Before the immediate mobilization around World War II, the years leading up to it saw federal jobs programs employ millions in work the private sector simply didn’t see as important enough to create…

“Full employment was an animating demand of social movements through much of the postwar era, which led to it being featured in the Democratic Party platform until 1980… Thinking creatively in such a dire crisis—about silver linings and opportunities—can feel inappropriate, even irresponsible… [But] How lawmakers respond to Covid-19 and its economic fallout could either protect the next century from the persistent crises threatened by rising temperatures, or make them far worse.”
Kate Aronoff, New Republic