In just 10 days, the Small Business Administration has received 266,000 applications asking for $65 billion in aid, more than twice the amount provided by Congress. Perhaps no industry was hit as hard by the COVID-19 economic shutdowns as restaurants and bars. As of Wednesday, 21,000 grants totaling $2.7 billion had gone out the door, with more than 250,000 applications pending. Advertisement“Right now, SBA has more than $36 billion in applications from small, struggling independent businesses that will not receive funding,” said National Restaurant Assn. The groups haven’t yet put a dollar figure on how much they want Congress to provide to replenish the fund, nor have members of Congress.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 14, 2021 00:07 UTC