Most people need that salary to survive due to fixed obligations: mortgages, rents, credit card debt, car leases, etc. That's what we need to pause. Beyond tha

Most people need that salary to survive due to fixed obligations: mortgages, rents, credit card debt, car leases, etc. That's what we need to pause. Beyond that, you have discretionary spending, which can be cut. And finally, you have essentials: food, medicine, and similar. That's a tiny, tiny fraction. That's what we need to bail out. Yes, there will be long-term consequences of lost production, which will shrink our economy a little bit. But that's fundamentally different from debt defaults, bankruptcies, and evictions. Hitting a pause button avoids all of that.