Small businesses account for 44 percent of U.S. GDP, create two-thirds of net new jobs, and employ nearly half of America’s workers. Now, millions of main street small businesses are struggling to make ends meet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis.
President Joe Biden launched changes to the U.S. coronavirus aid program for small businesses to try to reach smaller and minority-owned firms, sole proprietors and those with past criminal records left behind in previous rounds of aid.
The changes announced by Biden are only good through the program’s expiration at the end of March. He has proposed $7 billion more in PPP funding for small businesses in his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan now under debate in Congress.
