Tag Archives: Paycheck Protection Program

2021 Paycheck Protection Program Opens With New Reqs

The Biden administration has announced updated regulations for the Paycheck Protection Program in order to ensure funding reaches small business owners. The new regulations will limit loan applications under the program to businesses with fewer than 20 employees for the first two weeks of the new application period, which begins on February 24.

The new rules will also alter some eligibility requirements for applicants with felony records, outstanding student loans and uncertain citizenship status.

In a statement released by the White House, the administration said the revamped program is aimed at ensuring “equitable relief to hard-hit small businesses,” as well as rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.  

Last year, the Small Business Administration and Trump administration officials came under criticism for approving loans to large corporations while blocking assistance to so-called “Main Street” businesses.

The PPP is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a $2 trillion aid program ratified by Congress last March to provide relief to business owners who have suffered significant drops during the corona crisis.

Biden Reaches Out to Small Businesses

Joe Biden courtesy of Gage Skidmore

The campaign for the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, Joe Biden, will create an initiative to deploy an advisory council on small businesses and entrepreneurship. The initiative includes John Hickenlooper, who is running for the Senate in Colorado; Andrew Yang, who, along with Hickenlooper, participated in the Democratic primaries; and the owner of a Miami-based empanada company.

Biden’s campaign will also place a group of four advertisements throughout Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania that will focus on business owners who have been hurt and are struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The initiative and the ads are designed to contrast Biden’s concern with the actions of the Trump administration which the campaign believes did not do enough to help small business and handled the Covid-19 pandemic poorly.

Biden has often pointed to Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and brought attention to the difficulties small businesses are facing with an emphasis on the challenges procuring Paycheck Protection Program loans.

“The fact is that we’re in a situation where right now an awful lot of small businesses, 50 or fewer employees, are going out of business because the $2 trillion in the acts that are passed by the Congress aren’t getting to them at all,” Biden explained at a fundraiser.