The recent coronavirus law may help some Americans find temporary relief, but it is too slow, wholly insufficient, and riddled with bad incentives and unintended consequences. The law will exacerbate and prolong a devastating economic decline that will harm millions of people.

Because most Americans are being told to stay home, the centerpiece of the law should have been substantial monthly cash relief to the people. Instead, much of the assistance was funneled to Mnuchin and the Federal Reserve, mostly to boost large corporations at their discretion.

Small businesses will be eligible for loans to help them weather the storm, but obtaining loan forgiveness means giving up flexibility. Some businesses can manage this, but many others will stagnate at a time when they need to adapt. This will not benefit workers in the long run.

If substantial monthly cash payments had been provided to the people, then businesses could make necessary adjustments to wages and hours without harming workers. This dynamic would allow them to keep more people employed while enhancing the long-term viability of the business.

The law also provides robust unemployment benefits, but this money would have been better spent on monthly payments to all Americans regardless of employment status. As structured, it perversely makes employment a financial liability for many. We shouldn’t discourage employment.

Furthermore, the new law will be complex to administer, requiring a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork that will delay or deny assistance and produce countless errors. There is considerable economic and social value to the simplicity and speed of universal, monthly cash relief.

I’ve spent the past few weeks chatting with many business owners, managers, employees, and independent workers. The recent law isn’t going to provide most of them the help they need—and that’s even if it can be implemented without significant problems. We need an immediate redo.