Ad Hoc Massachusetts Small Business COVID-19 Response Coalition Recommends Improvements to the Paycheck Protection Program
MACDC joined with community-based organizations, CDCs, CDFIs, and advocates across the state to send recommendations to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for improvements to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The recommendations focused on two broad areas: 1) recommendations to simplify and improve the implementation of PPP Rounds 1 and 2; and 2) recommendations for the next phase of small business assistance. Nearly sixty organizations collaborated on these recommendations and sent them in a letter to the SBA and the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation.
The coalition is calling for the following modifications to the program:
- To provide businesses with more time to use PPP funds and to extend the program until December 31, 2020;
- To provide businesses with more flexibility on how to spend the funds by reducing or eliminating the requirement to spend 75% of the dollars on payroll;
- To clarify and simplify the forgiveness requirements;
- To automatically forgive small loans;
- To allow businesses to refinance the unforgiven portion of a PPP loan into a longer term loan;
- To collect demographic and geographic data of PPP participants;
- To recycle dollars recouped through loan repayments; and
- To expand language accessibility.
The group further called on the SBA and Congress to design future small business support efforts in a way that more directly addresses racial inequities and targets resources to the businesses that need it the most.