Articles Tagged with ''pandemic''

The Small Business Administration on Monday will start accepting new applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, using more than $300 billion in new funding provided by a coronavirus relief bill President Donald Trump signed into law Friday.

More than 30 Republican and Democratic House members are proposing to include an additional $50 billion in aid to farmers in the next COVID-19 economic relief bill.

The House on Thursday cleared a $484 billion COVID-19 relief bill that will replenish the Paycheck Protection Program with an additional $320 billion and make farms eligible for a separate disaster loan program for small businesses.

Participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are now getting emergency benefit increases totaling $2 billion a month nationwide that Congress authorized to address the unemployment surge and economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. 

USDA’s $19 billion COVID-19 aid package for farmers may fall well short of compensating producers for the estimated damage of the pandemic, and the department has an ambitious and novel plan to distribute USDA-purchased commodities to needy people. 

The Senate OKs a bipartisan agreement to infuse the highly popular Paycheck Protection Program with an additional $320 billion while also making farms eligible for a separate disaster loan program for small businesses. 

The Small Business Administration ran out of money Thursday for the highly popular forgivable loans that dairy operations and other farms and businesses that have been applying for in droves to pay workers amid the loss of sales during the COVID-19 crisis.

Without government relief, some analysts are sharply lowering their estimates of net farm income because of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on agricultural markets, with the livestock sector and corn growers bearing much of the hit.

Senate Democrats halted a Republican effort to add $250 billion to the highly popular Paycheck Protection Program for farms and small businesses, saying the measure failed to address other more urgent needs.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says USDA wants to provide relief from the COVID-19 crisis to eligible farm sectors “sooner rather than later,” but the department will have to wait until this summer at the earliest to distribute an additional $14 billion in aid.