What is the CARES act, and how is it helping small businesses?

In April of 2019, the previous administration passed the CARES act in order to provide financial assistance to small businesses, workers, and families in the U.S. The bill aims to support the economic recovery efforts by allocating that money to payroll, eviction, foreclosure assistance, and loans to small businesses.

The Small Business Paycheck Protection Program helps protect small businesses. The goal is to help them financially recover and keep their employees and businesses running without having to worry about the lack of incoming cash flow. It sounds great, right? The problem is that most small businesses have a team of 1–5 people, which means they have to deliver on orders, check inventory, help the customers, and the endless list of things that take up most of their time. Meanwhile, corporations have teams of 100 to thousands of employees. They can dedicate a whole team or department to completing the paperwork to file the application on time. It means that small businesses are left with a huge disadvantage and miss out on the money that was initially created for them.

In the last year, the majority of small business owners have shared their drop in earnings as a result of COVID and the restrictions that came later on, such as the lockdown. More than 50% of small business owners believe that if they have not been affected yet, they will eventually be impacted by the economic downfall in 2020. There’s no denying the pandemic has affected cities across the U.S, both big and small. It’s essential that we highlight those affected the most, which are local and small businesses that rely on their community for support.

Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash

This bill is focused on protecting and supporting small businesses. It is labeled the Small Businesses Paycheck Protection Program. At a time in which the majority of business owners were struggling to keep their business afloat, this bill was created to alleviate that stress by giving them money directly. It was not only helping the businesses but the employees as well. According to Forbes, 47 million people were laid off as a result of the pandemic. Back in July of 2020, the Atlantic published an article on this program subtitled, “A government program intended to put money in the hands of workers is now being faulted for the breadth of its success.” They reveal how although the money was intended to support small businesses across the country, it supports large corporations and even mentioned how Kanye West’s brand received between $2 and $5million. It’s infuriating to learn that millionaires were getting more support than our local mom and pops.

Many cities and counties started creating ways to support “all things local” such as resources and tools. But after speaking with so many business owners of all backgrounds, fields, locations, the majority said they need customers. If their community keeps supporting them, then there is no fear of collapsing. We understand that there’s a gap between the community, government, and local businesses, and our goal is to fix that. By creating the Local Portal, Glass has enabled the government to incentivize citizens to put their local businesses first.

Want to learn more about the Local Portal? Request a demo now!