That is exactly what was done here in the Netherlands. Booking.com just decided to exploit and, in my opinion, abuse that system.

Edit: These emergency financial support measures I was referring to are:

- "Temporary emergency scheme for job retention" (NOW)

- "Temporary self-employment income support and loan scheme" (TOZO)

- "Reimbursement Fixed Costs" (TVL)

More info (in English) on gov websites:

- https://www.government.nl/topics/coronavirus-covid-19/inform...

- https://english.rvo.nl/subsidies-programmes/reimbursement-fi...

Edit 2: Oh wait there is more:

- "Subsidy scheme for events cancelled due to corona measures"

- "TVL Stock Support Closed Retail"

- "R&D subsidy scheme for the mobility sector" (RDM)

- "Temporary Support for Necessary Costs" (TONK)

- "Arrangement for businesses damaged by curfew riots" (RBC)

More info: https://business.gov.nl/corona/overview/the-coronavirus-and-...

NOW appears to pay businesses up-front for, in turn, continuing to pay employees: https://business.gov.nl/subsidy/corona-crisis-temporary-emer...

Arguably, it would've been a much better system if the Netherlands just... paid people directly regardless of who they worked for at the time, so employers didn't need to worry about paying employees while they couldn't do normal business.

I think it was similar in Canada. Everyone here that got laid off was eligible for government money though, so I think it would have been better to forgo the wage subsidies for businesses. A lot of them pocketed that money.

Instead they should have let businesses lay off staff without feeling guilty because there was a safety net for those people and once a business laid off X% of their staff they could have been eligible for extra government help.

That way the government wouldn't have ended up paying the wages of people that were needed to meet demand (and make profit for) the businesses that weren't really impacted.

For example, local restaurants got crushed and could easily justify laying off 50%+ of their staff. Give them more money IMO. However, the delivery business down the street with +50% demand shouldn't be getting a nickel.

That's exactly what it is. Reasoning being two-fold, first is that it's easy to implement as the government knows the exact payroll of every company anyways (they file taxes quarterly), second is to keep people on the payroll in case restrictions can be loosened. They're still working, so can go back to productivity immediately.

Yeah the systems are far from perfect. They're inefficient, in some cases unfair, and with regards to abuse perhaps rely a little too much on good faith.

Nevertheless the systems do exist. Financial aid was and even still is there for you or your business if you need it.

Have you counted on how much this would have costed?

The amount the US government has spent on pandemic relief is 20-30k per American, depending on how you choose to count.

(Edit: I’m aware TFA is about about European pandemic relief.)