Health Secretary Matt Hancock has admitted he could not live on the UK's meagre £94.25-a-week rate of sick pay.
The Cabinet minister issued a blunt "no" when he was asked on BBC's Question Time if he could get by on the sum.
His forthright response comes after other Tories, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak, dodged the question.
And it hints there could be a change to sick pay in a sweeping package of measures for workers that is due to be announced by Mr Sunak tonight.
The Chancellor has spent days locked in talks with industry and unions - including the TUC, whose boss Frances O'Grady quizzed him on Question Time - about how to help workers.
A £350bn bailout this week mainly went to businesses and had no conditions on keeping workers' jobs.
Reports suggest he could accept proposals to subsidise workers' wages, essentially paying them directly from the state, to ensure their jobs are still there after the outbreak.
But as of now, sick pay is still not available to the self-employed or anyone earning less than £118 a week.
Speaking on Question Time - which took place without an audience and with a wide distance between each panellist - Mr Hancock said: "I'm not going to prejudge what the Chancellor's going to say tomorrow.
"But all I can say is: mark my words, we will do everything we can to make sure people are supported through this."
Today Mr Hancock said Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce “much more” for stricken workers later today.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted only the “heft of the state” could save millions from redundancy.
Campaigners have called for the state to subsidise the majority of workers’ wages and raise sick pay and Universal Credit.
Mr Hancock told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The Chancellor will be saying much more today.
“The only was to think about this is it is a war against an invisible killer. And that means that we have to marshal the resources of the entire nation as best we possibly can as a community.
“We’re all humans… We all must come together to rise to this challenge.
“And of course it is only the financial heft of the state that can help people through this so that when we come out the other side, the businesses are still there and ready to open again.”
Mr Hancock tried to allay doctors' fears that they are lacking the protective equipment and ventilators they needed to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
A junior doctor in Weston-super-Mare told him her colleagues are "frightened" of ending up in a situation similar to Italy's in a few weeks and asked how equipment would be rationed when the NHS becomes "overwhelmed".
Mr Hancock said a "massive effort" was under way to deliver personal protective equipment to NHS staff and social care providers.
"I can tell you that over the last 24 hours we've shipped 2.6 million masks, 10,000 bottles of hand sanitiser, and we have a growing effort to get that equipment to the frontline," he said.
"Overnight we're going to get 150 hospitals the next pack of protective equipment that they need. We've got all this in storage in case there's a pandemic like this and there are literally lorries on the road right now.
"Some hospitals will get it overnight tonight and then the rest will get their next load before the end of the weekend."
The Cabinet minister assured that the Government has had an "amazing response" to a call-out for manufacturers to turn their efforts to make ventilators, which are seen as essential to saving lives from Covid-19.
He said 1,400 companies have come forward to say they are able to turn their capabilities to the task.
