Who bears risk—people or government?

RARELY, IF EVER, has a proposal moved from policy paper to implementation in a matter of days. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was first proposed by the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, on March 19th as the scale of the hit to the economy from the pandemic became clearer. Four days later, on March 23rd, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, made the furlough scheme the centrepiece of the government’s economic response to the virus. Initially due to run for just three months, it will now be in place until at least October and is currently paying 80% of the wages, up to £2,500 ($3,200) a month, of nearly 9m British workers. It costs the Treasury about the same each month as the National Health Service (NHS).