The trouble with emergency financial measures is that the crises used to justify them never seem to end. Just as the Bank of England couldn’t bring itself to think the time was ever right to reel back the ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing it introduced at the nadir of the 2008/09 financial crisis, so the furlough scheme is steadily becoming a permanent part of Britain’s welfare infrastructure. Originally scheduled to end last June, it is to be extended yet again until the end of this September, by which time it will have been in operation for 18 months. This will be three months after all Covid restrictions are due to end. What, then, will be the excuse for the government to continue to pay the wages of employees who are not actually working?
The furlough scheme has built up an expectation that the government will always step in to pay the wages of people who find themselves out of work through no fault of their own.
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