While the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme dominated politicians' return to Canberra this week, the boosted and renamed JobSeeker dole payment was the elephant in the room.

There are 1.6 million people on the unemployment allowance of about $1100 a fortnight, now double the rate before the pandemic.

While the wage subsidy scheme is helping about three million fewer than first predicted, there are still 3.3 million people surviving on $1500 fortnightly JobKeeper payments.

The new and improved safety nets are slated to end in September.

The almost five million Australians being supported through those two programs represent about a third of people enrolled to vote.

Scott Morrison faces a Goldilocks moment in the coming months.

Weaning the country off support too quickly carries great risk, but the government has always insisted the changes are temporary.

Where the government lands is a delicate economic and political high-wire act affecting millions of Australians.

With a predicted unemployment rate of eight per cent during a recession, cutting too many people adrift too quickly could sap the political capital earned through the crisis navigation.

Tony Abbott warned of the political consequences of withdrawing personal benefits in April.

The former prime minister said it was especially hard when recipients could rightly claim government policy - life-saving shutdown measures - threw them out of work.

The best form of welfare is a job mantra gets harder to sell when opportunities become scarce.

Especially when the coalition's aspirational voters find themselves in dole queues despite the economy reopening.

Many will return to jobs, but many won't.

Labor refuses to put a dollar amount on a JobSeeker rise, other than to say the old rate of $40 a day is too low.

The Greens - unshackled by the prospect of governing or budgets - say at least $1012 a fortnight is needed to keep people out of poverty.

While debate burns across traditional battle lines, embers are emerging within the coalition.

North Queensland veteran Liberal Warren Entsch wants wage subsidies extended in regional tourism centres like Cairns.

NSW Nationals MP Pat Conaghan has argued for the doubled dole to continue well beyond the six-month expiry and a longer-term permanent hike in the order of $75 to $95 a week.

Sydney-based Liberal Jason Falinski is a vocal advocate for ending the spending as soon as possible.

He declared the full return of students to classrooms was the right time to talk about phasing out the income and welfare support schemes.

A powerful international economic partnership has joined the call for income support to be extended beyond September.

The OECD says further stimulus including social housing may need to be looked at.

And the government's rhetorical ebb and flow on JobKeeper risks causing whiplash.

Last Friday, the prime minister gave a guarantee the program would continue until its legislated cut-off in September.

By Monday, Education Minister Dan Tehan announced childcare workers would be shifted to a transitional payment from July 20.

The next day Finance Minister Mathias Cormann fronted the Labor-chaired coronavirus response inquiry.

He argued the program's existence for the full six months justified Morrison's guarantee.

Child care was being excluded in favour of more fair and equitable measures agreed to after representations from the sector, the senior lieutenant said.

"The prime minister's statement was and remains 100 per cent accurate," Cormann told Senate Question Time on Wednesday.

Labor argues 120,000 childcare workers will miss out despite the guarantee.

Morrison's language also evolved through the parliamentary week.

He raised the prospects of Treasury's review prompting changes to JobKeeper in July, before declaring a day later payments will remain in place for everyone except childcare staff.

"This is a very special case. JobKeeper is there till the end of September," the prime minister said on Thursday.

The door for tinkering is wide open, even if whole sectors aren't booted off without a parachute.

Reductions, recalibration and replacement now shape as more likely options.

The road out looks much harder than the road in.

Australian Associated Press