Dear Members:
As you may be aware, the U.S. Senate yesterday passed a $484 billion package to replenish funding for the Paycheck Protection Program and assist hospitals in responding to COVID-19.
The new funding is in addition to the CARES Act that passed in late March, and will include more than $322 billion for the Payment Protection Program (PPP). The program offers forgivable loans to rescue struggling small- and medium-sized businesses, but ran out of money in less than two weeks.
Approximately $60 billion of the new funding will be set aside for smaller financial institutions to serve businesses in rural and minority areas that had trouble accessing the loans through larger institutions.
The new funding measure will also include $60 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief fund, $75 billion to hospitals and $25 billion to ramp up coronavirus testing.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve the measure on Thursday and the President is expected to sign the bill by the end of the week. We will keep you updated as the legislation progresses.
