Even in that top 10% there are still people that live paycheck-to-paycheck. I was there not long ago. It's a lot better to give everyone the money and be wrong about ~10% of the people needing it then delay it for people who have bill past due right now.
$100,000 has much more purchasing power than $18,000. For you saving $5000 is easy. For someone making minimum wage, saving $500 by the end of the year is impossible.
If you have a car, your deductible might be 250-500. The majority of the minimum wage earners deductible is 500. They usually don't have that when accident happens. When the boiler goes out, it usually cost same to fix it for high earners and minimum wage earners.
Net after tax: $74k
Monthly take home: $6166
Rent: $3000 ($3166)
Health insurance + meds: $600 ($2566)
Student loans: $1000 ($1566)
Muni: $196 ($1370)
Groceries: $400 ($970)
Electricity: $90 ($880)
Internet: $80 ($800)
Cell: $150 ($650)
Debt: $300 ($350)
So that's $350 for a family of two at the end of the day to spend on life, in a city where two cheeseburgers can cost $50. A lot of times for me this would be spent flying home for holidays. It would take about 8 years to save up enough of an emergency fund to cover 6 months of expenses if 100% of that were put into savings, which isn't realistic. This is a salary that provides a comfortable life, but like I said, it's paycheck to paycheck. If I had a disruption in my income, I would be out on the streets in short order. None of that can really be cut except cell and internet.
Rent: There are studios and 1-bedrooms to be had. Depending on who your +1 is, share a bed or put someone on the couch. $3166->$1500-$2000
Health insurance: Hah. Order your meds from overseas and cross your fingers. Or go without. $600->$0-$200
Groceries: Everyone on HN keeps telling me healthy food is cheap, you just have to be responsible enough to cook. $400->$250-$300
Cell: Budget plan and wifi. $150->$50-$80
Cut a few bucks from electricity by being super thrifty on energy usage, and save a bit of that debt for your tax refund.
Looks like a few thousand dollars a month in "fat," and you still don't have creditors hounding you. Nice.
I'm not saying that it's ideal to make these kinds of cuts. In fact, in the richest country on the planet, it's practically unconscionable that someone would work full-time and not live with the kind of stability, if minor uncertainty, you currently enjoy. I'm just saying that some of us also dropped half their paycheck into rent, at a quarter the pay, and made due. Well, lost ~$150 a month.
With all due respect, there's zero chance I'd be irresponsible enough to be making 6 figures and still be living paycheck-to-paycheck. I say this not as an attack, but as a call for you to maybe interrogate and recalibrate your expectations for your spending and, by extension, your expectations for other people's spending.
Rent: From my experience (n=1) most lease agreements force the remainder of the terms rent due within 30 days of early cancellations, making it infeasible to drastically reduce in the short term.
Health Insurance - If you are getting it through your employer most follow open enrollment periods and cannot be reduced/eliminated in the short term
Groceries: Fairly accurate for a single person, but in the context of the nCov situation many of the more affordable options are out of stock leaving more expensive alternatives.
Cell: Simple expense to cut in the short term, I would add non-essential subscriptions (streaming, etc.)
In order to live a fiscally responsible life, you cannot have such high expenses you are forced to live paycheck to paycheck. Hopefully this will be a catalyst for people to live within their means, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect extremely drastic cuts in the short-term (though I am not saying it was a prudent idea to put oneself in this financial position in the first place).
People are losing their jobs as we speak, and weeks-long quarantines are happening right now too. I have a couple of friends who have literally no idea how they’re going to stay housed and fed.
You're never going to get 100% of it put back in the economy immediately, but I think a very large percentage of it will.
What about people for whom this is pretty close to their rent/food/entertainment budget anyway? You want them to sit in their houses staring at each other with no way to pay their bills for [insert streaming entertainment service here]?