By Gene Marks, Photo: Gillian Flaccus/AP, The Guardian, June 5, 2022
A not-so-new federal program to help small businesses just began distributing funds this past week. How much? How does $10bn sound?
That’s not a joke. The federal government is making available $10bn and all small businesses in the country are eligible for the money. This is not the paycheck protection program or the economic injury disaster loan program. Both of those Covid-relief efforts have expired. This is also not a loan program from the Small Business Administration. It’s from the treasury department. The program is called the state small business credit initiative, or SSBCI, and it works like this.
The treasury department has been authorized – thanks to the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act – to distribute $10bn to each of the states, the District of Columbia and tribal territories on a formula based on local unemployment and the need for job creation. As mentioned above, the money began to flow just last week to five states and will continue throughout the next year. Also as mentioned above the program is not new. SSBCI was created back in 2010 and distributed $1.5bn at that time. So let’s call this version 2.0.
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