The losers look set to be people for whom the $1500-a-fortnight government subsidy has boosted their wages - which is anyone on the minimum wage or earning less than about $20 an hour, and many people working less than, say, three shifts a week.

Those people have had their pay boosted to a flat $750 a week.

But the government has been signalling that the subsidy could be cut back and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg kept up the messaging on Wednesday.

"We want to understand whether the quantum - that $1500 payment - continues to be the right amount, also bearing in mind that some people are getting paid more than they would otherwise get by virtue of having a flat payment," he said.

"In the context of an economy where the restrictions are being eased and people are getting back into work, we need to assess ... the continuation of that JobKeeper program in that context."

It also seems likely the subsidy will be more narrowly targeted to the industries which remain in trouble over the coming months, such as tourism where the recovery will be slower given ongoing bans on overseas travel.

And if anyone needed more convincing that the JobKeeper program is in for significant changes, Frydenberg announced a delay to his planned June budget update to July 23 so he can include changes to JobKeeper.

The good news is that economists are now revising their forecasts for the June quarter and beyond.

The downturn in June is still expected to be dire - with an 8 per cent economic contraction or worse - but it is a little better than expected and the money is on things picking up steadily in the second half of the year.

Providing the virus stays at bay.

That is the caveat that remains the big unknown. It is not quite three weeks since May 15 when restaurants were allowed to open to 10 diners at a time. And it was only this week that NSW opened pubs, clubs and restaurants for up to 50 at a time.

Canberra gyms have reopened but NSW gyms won't reopen until June 13.

New cases remain under 20 a day around the country and most are in known clusters, but we're a long way from seeing how much of a virus bump the economic reopening will have.

As we've seen in example after example overseas, the coronavirus spreads unnoticed before it reaches sufficient saturation for serious cases to appear, or knocks on the door of a vulnerable community such as a retirement home or cruise ship. And suddenly there it is.

Remember, this is a virus that has an incubation period of up to about 14 days.

It is a virus that people can spread two to three days before they get symptoms.

And it is a virus that many people don't even know they have - with estimates anywhere between a quarter and three-quarters of people with the virus have no symptoms, or at least no inkling.

While the "second wave" can be a fearsome thing in previous pandemics, the government appears increasingly confident that Australia might avoid such an event, holding out through border controls and aggressive tackling of outbreaks until a vaccine arrives.

If this is the case - and over 60s might not share in the general ebullience and optimism on that front - the economic news suggests that this is a hole from which Australia might start to climb sooner and perhaps faster than hoped.

Even so, it is not a pretty picture. Frydenberg says Australia was on the edge of a cliff facing "the economist's version of Armageddon". Even best case, the data from the June quarter, available three months' from now, will be much much worse than March.

Even best case, 1.7 million people will be on the dole, twice the number in January.

Unemployment is still tipped to hit 10 per cent, double what it was in January, and as the economists remind us the gloomy news about unemployment is that it goes up fast and comes down slow - so even if all goes well, it is not expected to be back at the pre-coronavirus rate until 2023.

And even with the relatively good news, the reality remains that three million people are having their wages, or a substantial portion of their wages, paid by the government, and businesses are being propped up through tax breaks and incentives, grants and low-interest loans.

Households are being propped up through mortgage deferments and, if they are on benefits or pensions, through cash grants and through the doubling of the unemployment benefit.

On Wednesday we learned that Australia is in the midst of the fist recession in 30 years, since the one Paul Keating had to have. Not even in the global financial crisis did the economy fall into recession.

But the reaction was not pandemonium or despair. Quite the opposite, Frydenberg and the analysts were pleased, largely because Australia has held up so much better than near anywhere else in the economic numbers as in the virus numbers.

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But the clearest message from the economists even as they welcomed the success to date, is to go slow.

Support must be phased out carefully, they warned, and even as some people and businesses are weaned gently off the public purse, others will need to be brought on to it.

If the experts are urging caution as the government turns to removing and retargeting economic supports, we're not seeing an abundance of it in the rush to reopen the economy more quickly than we can properly judge the resulting spread of the virus.

It's fingers crossed on that front.