PORTLAND, Ore. — A new round of funding is coming for small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program. The House overwhelming passed the new nearly $500 billion relief bill late Thursday. However, experts say the money still will not be enough to help every business that needs it.
While wearing masks and taking turns wiping down the podium between speakers, the House debated the nearly $500 billion dollar relief bill Thursday. Many said the new money for the Paycheck Protection Program needs to go to small businesses this time around instead of companies like Ruth's Chris Steak House, which got a $20 million loan.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pennsylvania, said, "These dollars must actually make it to those who need it, small family businesses, minority and women owned businesses, so many I've talked to over these last few weeks. Their future and our economy depends upon it."
Noticeably though, the rules for who gets the money did not change.
“The government did carve out $60 billion for smaller lenders that will hopefully get to smaller borrowers, but they also didn't change the rules, so that's just $60 billion, take the rest of the money and you can still be any business with 500 people or less,” explained NBC Senior Business Correspondent Stephanie Ruhle.
Ruhle said even lenders realize this second round of money still will not be enough to meet demand.
“We're going to be getting $310 billion additional dollars in that program, but we also know that there's over a trillion in demand, so there's more and more concern that even when this open up, when the spicket opens and those 4,000 lenders come charging, we're still not going to get to all those businesses in need who have been shut down through no fault of their own,” Ruhle explained.
That is why many, including Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, said the country needs a better plan to save small businesses.
“According to Howard Schultz, he said if this was 1987 and he was getting started in the coffee business and they were faced with a pandemic like this, Starbucks wouldn't have made it through,” Ruhle said. “Imagine that Starbucks, an institution, a global institution, because small businesses don't have lots of cash lying around for weeks not months, margins are very thin.”
President Trump is expected to sign the new relief bill it into law by the end of the week.