The problem isn't that PPP was created to keep people employed, or to keep idle employees paid. The problem is that PPP loans were made with little oversight, often to people who lied, and funds were not equitably or accurately distributed to the workers who were struggling.

It was a clumsy program that should never have existed. A much better solution would simply have been to distribute one month's worth of pay to everyone who reported income in the previous month, plus one month of earnings to everyone* with a schedule C, up to a cap.