Policymakers are tapping PPP loan lessons for future-fit insights into keeping Main Street businesses healthy. Researchers say that analyzing the legacy and impact of the U.S. government’s extraordinary $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan initiative, an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic, can help inform...
For Main Street SMBs, PPP business loans were once lifelines but now could become anchors. This, as the loans that were offered as federal aid during the pandemic are emerging as unexpected liabilities that some of the most vulnerable businesses simply can’t cover. As reported...
The COVID-19 pandemic created a need for unprecedented government disbursements. The United States federal government alone distributed $931 billion in direct payments to approximately 165 million individuals in 2020 and 2021, far exceeding any previous stimulus payment program in recent history. An estimated 9 million...
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a House committee Tuesday (Sept. 22) that marked economic progress has been made since the depths of the pandemic in March. But they said there’s more work to be done, especially in addressing...
May 01, 2020
Since the launch of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in early April, the single-minded focus of the U.S. Treasury, the banks approved to process PPP loans and the small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) clamoring for those funds was to get as many applications completed, approved and funds distributed as possible — and as quickly as possible. A process that […]
April 27, 2020
When the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) debuted earlier this month, it was heralded by some observers as a lifeline for small businesses that power Main Street in the United States....
April 09, 2020
For the last week, a veritable tidal wave of small- to medium-sized business (SMB) owners have been lining up to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds — a $350 billion segment of...
September 14, 2023
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has placed a moratorium on processing new claims for the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), a pandemic-era relief program, aiming to prevent a recurrence of the sort of fraud that happened around the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This decision comes in response to growing concerns about the influx of ineligible claims and aggressive marketing tactics that are […]
July 29, 2020
Lawmakers want to fix a mix-up in the economic relief CARES Act laws from March that could cost small businesses $120 billion in taxes, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports....
June 15, 2020
Square Capital LLC processed more than $820 million in Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgivable loans in six weeks, the firm reported. The San Francisco-based division of Square...
June 15, 2020
U.S. Democratic lawmakers, in letters to the chief executives of several large banks, demanded the release of documents related to loans made under the government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), CNBC...
