I would like this relief to be tied to "keep paying people and maintain cleanliness at your stores".

To use the term, "trickle down" but with requirements for the trickle part.

Feels a bit like this is a "pass it on" type deal- killing the worries for the people in the middle probably relieves a lot of stress for people at the bottom- if I'm not worried about making rent, I'm probably not going to be pushing hours quite as hard, nor am I going to be as strict about people coming in. (Personally, I'd be ensuring that all my workers still had places to live and good food to eat, even if it cost me personally to do so.)

Unfortunately, this feels like it relies on the same mechanism as trickle down economics.

Maybe, but in this instance the trickle down is personal... the people who benefit (franchisees) would be trickling the benefits down to people they know -- their employees. I think the calculus ends up being different when you are giving benefits down to people you know (as opposed to the more nebulous trickle down). McDonalds could also dictate how any rent deferral was handled.

In reality this is the effect of trickle up economics. Ie the upper class relies on extracting wealth from the bottom mostly through labor. This is a fight for their own survival.

Definitely upper half. Considering it costs about $400k just to be able to bid on a franchise...