On today’s Business Beat, Jeff Sloan shares information on how small businesses can get part of $10 billion in federal aid earmarked to broaden the recovery from the pandemic.
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Jeff Sloan: Good morning, Paul! we’ve got some important and timely news for U.S. small businesses. Funds for lending or investment into small businesses. As part of the State Small Business Credit Initiative now being made available to five states and Michigan is one of those first five states. In total, the U.S. will provide $10 billion in aid in an attempt to spur business in disadvantaged communities and broaden the recovery from the pandemic. Funding will come from the $1.9-trillion federal COVID-19 aid package approved last year.
Now, the way this program works is that the funding is made available to the states and the states then route the funding to the institutions who will lend or invest the capital into the small businesses that they approve. Inc. reporter Melissa Angell just published an article on Inc.com about the first installment of funds from this program being made available now. Melissa?
Melissa Angell: So this program has been around since 2010, but here’s the interesting thing. So last year, last March specifically, when President Biden had signed that $1.9-trillion stimulus package, that act had reauthorized the program, the State Small Business Credit Initiative. So that basically authorizes $10 billion in funding, and we’re starting to see some of that funding come out now. And so this is an opportunity for small businesses basically to have access to capital. And the funding is dispersed to different states. Basically, they apply and they have to map out these plans and they submit these plans to Treasury of how they plan to use these funds.
Jeff: Thank you, Melissa. If you’re a small business looking for financial help, to learn more, go to the U.S. Treasury website and look for information relating to the State Small Business Credit Initiative.
I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com, and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.