Photo: Getty Images. Illustration: Inc. Magazine
Ron Busby and Brock Blake both shot plenty of criticism at the Small Business Administration last year over its handling of the Paycheck Protection Program. Now, they agree: The PPP might be experiencing its first smooth rollout.
On Monday, the SBA and the Treasury Department prelaunched the newest round of the forgivable loan program to specifically help underserved small businesses that were unable to secure PPP loans last year. So far, the program has been open only to lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and microloan intermediaries which typically work with smaller businesses than traditional banks do.
Thanks to longer term trends in digitalisation, transparency and the urgent need for quick economic guidance in the pandemic, the pool of data for tracking economic activity in almost real time has grown significantly. Researchers and policy makers now have access to new and innovative data sets, the most known probably being Google mobility reports. .
Plenty of Americans need that federal government money to stay afloat. But what if you donât?
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Plenty of Americans need that $600 stimulus check. But what should the ones who don t do with it? [ ELISE AMENDOLA | AP ]
Published Jan. 7
For a lot of Americans, the $600 check that just landed in our bank accounts could do some good, at least in the short term.
The cash infusion from the federal government could help pay bills, buy groceries, make the rent â generally hold it together for a little longer in a pandemic-addled world.
But what if youâre lucky enough to not really need the stimulus check that Uncle Sam sent?
Minority-Owned Businesses at End of the Line for PPP Loans, Thousands Ignored or Denied
On 1/3/21 at 3:01 PM EST
Tens of thousands of minority-owned small businesses across the country were among the last to receive Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government s March COVID-19 pandemic relief program if they were approved at all.
The loan program ran from April 3 to August 8. An analysis of it by the Associated Press published Sunday found that minority business owners many of them just hanging on financially had their applications and inquiries pushed back to the final few weeks of the program. The AP analyzed ZIP codes from PPP data and found loans were approved at twice the rate in areas with the largest proportions of white residents. The AP detailed how six loans were approved for every 1,000 people living in the 20 percent of ZIP codes that make up the highest percentage of white residents. This trend continued as minority-owned businesses failed to rece