Not everyone benefitted from the furlough scheme as evidenced by this thread. Many self-employed people were excluded from most avenues of help. As someone else said, it was handy for those who got 80% of their wage after being sent home but there were still bills, mortgages, and rent to pay for many of those people. Sure, not being able to go out or go on holiday, etc, helped with the 20% shortfall but none of those who were paid furlough money came out the other end a lot richer than before Covid but a fair few went back to a job where their employer's business had taken a hit in revenues, or worse still, had gone bust. Certainly, the place I work at has never recovered to pre-pandemic levels.