Small businesses to receive COVID-19 help

WEST PLAINS – A $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed unanimously by the Senate late Wednesday night contains $377 billion in funding designed to help small businesses.

“There is a lot of relief targeted at small businesses,” Washington 5th District Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers told West Plains Chamber of Commerce members during a call Thursday morning.

“There was a sense that we had to get relief to small businesses,” she added. “This is a backstop to help our economy.”

The funding is federally guaranteed, Small Business Administration 7A loans for businesses under 500 employees and some franchises. McMorris Rogers said if employers maintain their payrolls, the loans would be forgiven.

“The size of the loan would be tied to the applicants’ monthly payroll,” she said, adding the maximum loan amount would be $10 million.

There was also an expansion of unemployment insurance, a creating a new, pandemic employment assistance program “for non-traditionally eligible for unemployment benefits.”

The stimulus also includes $1,200 payments to individuals who make up to $75,000, with payments scaled down to a maximum income of $99,000. It includes $100 billion in help for hospitals and $200 billion for other “domestic priorities,” according to an article in The Hill.

“It is estimated 90 percent of Americans are going to get a payment there,” McMorris said. She added that she was “heartened” by the coordination exhibited in pushing through the package by Senate and House members, the White House and government staff.

We are managing a process, not just an event,” McMorris Rogers added of the pandemic and its impacts.

Alex Scott, a spokesman from Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office, praised McMorris Roger’s summary of the package, adding that one item Cantwell fought for was grants, noting the SBA loan process wasn’t “necessarily a good fit for everybody.”

“We really wanted to make sure that we made some grants available through that as well,” Scott said.

Scott said businesses who wanted to apply for the grants should apply for the SBA disaster loan first in order to begin that process. As soon as application is made, the business should proceed with the grant application, and if successful in receiving the grant, wouldn’t have to pay it back even if denied the disaster loan.

“What our office is hearing is everybody needs to be getting in those lines, getting those applications in whether it’s a small business going through the SBA process or even on the individual level, getting your taxes filed as early as possible as that is likely to help you get your individual checks sooner,” Scott said.

Scott said that because the package is so large and “historic” to be patient with SBA officials and staff as they wade through the applications. He added he anticipated a fourth package would be “hammered out next month” as the pandemic and its impacts deepen.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].