The tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum. Public-domain photograph.
The CARES Act, signed March 27, 2020, was a relief law of more than $2 trillion.
If money is tight, the check and the bigger unemployment benefit are the difference between the month and a crisis.
If you are in the middle, paycheck support for your employer is how the job survives the closure.
If you have savings, the markets are being held up by the same law that is mailing household checks.
Congress sent direct payments to households, added a large federal boost to unemployment benefits, and paid firms that kept people on payroll.
The Federal Reserve was back at the floor and lending into markets that had frozen.
The shutdown was a health order, and the response was a flood of public money.
Source: CARES Act, signed March 27, 2020.