When the number of people infected with coronavirus in the U.S. exceeded 4 million, it turned out that the emergency aid to small businesses was useless.
The Washington Post wrote about it.
As noted in the media, last week for the first time since March, the number of new applications for unemployment benefits began to grow. Cities and even states have to return to quarantine measures, while economic activity has stopped.
All this makes the state program to help small businesses absolutely useless. Washington has allocated $660 billion so that companies can take out loans to pay their employees’ salaries. But that money has already been wasted. According to economists, the dismissals at the end of June and July were already due to the fact that there is nothing left of the state aid.
“It was just a band-aid on a bullet wound”, – commented car dealer Tammy Nelson. – “All he really did was prolong the agony so our workers could still apply for unemployment benefits. Whether it’s April 15 or June 30, the end result remains the same.”
The publication noted that at the moment there are no official statistics, which would show how many dismissals are due to exhausted state support. At the same time, the National Federation of Independent Business conducted a survey, finding out that 22% of companies receiving state support had already been forced to start dismissals. Back in June, this figure was 14%.
In addition, according to the Goldman Sachs report, only one out of six companies that received loans were sure that they would be able to pay their employees’ salaries.