Robyn Shultz was waiting for approval of her $40,000 small-business loan last week when the government’s first-come-first-served lending program ran out of cash.
Shultz, 60, owns Quality Electric Co. in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, Steve Bearden. She said the assistance from the
“Smaller companies like us are probably just going to be washed under the rug,” Shultz said.
The swift and unprecedented response by the U.S. government and the
Policy makers in Congress, the Treasury Department and the central bank have taken a lesson from the last financial meltdown, 12 years ago, when ordinary Americans were left to fend for themselves and millions lost their homes. This time, they’ve included individuals and small businesses in their aid packages in a way they didn’t in 2008, when bank bailouts, even as they saved the system from collapse, sparked outcry over tilted playing fields for the rich and ignited a backlash that altered the political direction of the country.
But if one of the lessons of 2008 is to help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the lesson seems to be only partly learned. Americans live in two separate and unequal worlds, and the bailouts reflect this.
Clunky Rollout
The clunky, slow rollout of help for small businesses comes as aid for the financial system flows freely. In early March, the Fed under Chairman
“In 2008, they forgot about Main Street and thought only about Wall Street,” said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “In 2020, they did a parade down Main Street and forgot to leave the goodies.”
The federal government and the central bank have committed more than $2.6 trillion to saving the U.S. economy from coronavirus fallout. That includes the two PPP appropriations and $77 billion for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Mid-size companies are targeted with $600 billion from the Fed’s two Main Street Lending facilities, not yet in operation.
“A lot of the pressure came from outside the government, and I do think Treasury has been very attuned to it,” Hubbard said. “The bad press from ’08, not dealing with homeowners, was probably on people’s minds.”
White Knuckles
Neighborhood business owners, many of whom did the right thing by closing their doors to help stop the spread of the virus, have had to white-knuckle it for weeks. Some of the 1.7 million applicants approved for PPP loans describe bureaucratic runarounds. Those like Robyn Shultz sweat it out, waiting for the Treasury Department to calm the confusion and for Congress’s additional resources to arrive.
“It just seems like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,” Shultz said. “I don’t know where to turn for guidance.”
Small businesses are an anchor of the American economy. They provide almost half the country’s jobs, about 45% of national production and almost all the employment growth. So it was disappointing for Alex Steed, who co-owns a video-production company in Portland, Maine, when he couldn’t get through to the SBA help line after applying for a loan.
“I was told I was caller number 1,403, and it would be around a three-hour wait,” said Steed. “I stayed on the line for several hours before it went dead. I never ended up connecting with anyone.”
Loans Forgiven
PPP loans, backed by the government, are made by banks and other lenders. They max out at $10 million and will be forgiven if businesses spend at least 75% of the amount on retaining workers.
Melissa White has only one employee: herself. She has owned and operated Extensions of You, a hair-extension salon in San Antonio, Texas, for 18 years. Most of her clients are dealing with illnesses that have caused hair loss. She said no one has been able to give her clear answers on PPP.
“The government and people are touting how they have this program ready, but from my perspective there’s just a big disconnect,” White said. “Everybody’s confused.”
Maximum Loans
Many small businesses say they are angry that bigger companies have gotten PPP loans and they haven’t, especially at a time when borrowing options are narrowing. Restaurants and hospitality companies were able to
Small-Business Rescue Shows Not All States Are Created Equal
Companies receiving the maximum loan amount of $10 million include
Ruth’s Chris Steak House’s parent,
On April 19, several small businesses filed a
Mom, Pop
“When I think of small businesses, I think of mom-and-pop stores with a handful of employees,” said Alex Gonzalez, an energy consultant in Odessa, Texas, who applied for but didn’t get an SBA loan. “You wonder how much of this money that was intended for companies with 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 or 20 employees were left off.”
A majority of the PPP loans, but only about 17% of the total, was in amounts less than $150,000, according to a Treasury Department presentation last week.
Meanwhile, big companies are getting lifelines.
After nudging from private equity and real estate firms, the Fed also said it would buy some high-yield bonds, a rescue of troubled-debt markets and their investors.
Hedge Funds
Some billion-dollar hedge funds, too, have benefited from quick Fed action. A number of them, including
In early March, investors unnerved by the uptick in Covid-19 cases bought up Treasury futures. The basis trade was in a position to tank. Hedge funds’ large, leveraged holdings detracted “from orderly market functioning,” according to the BIS. One 30-year veteran said he’d never seen anything like it: an inability to trade in the $17 trillion market. The Fed responded, limiting losses. Both Millennium and ExodusPoint declined to comment.
The profit and loss of highly leveraged hedge funds have little effect on the wider American economy, aside from the havoc they can cause in financial markets. Shultz, the Alabama electrical contractor, has other things to worry about, such as staying employed, staying in business and staying alive. The bailout has been an added source of unease for her and for many others, threatening to worsen the alienation that cleaved American society after 2008.
“I really have no faith,” Shultz said. “I have no faith in the system. In this government. In this leadership.”
--With assistance from
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Melinda Grenier
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