Congress Set to Expand Small Business Loan Program

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There’s been heavy coverage of the problems we’ve had rolling out the coronavirus rescue programs. Unemployment offices are swamped. Conditions are too onerous for the small business loan program. The $1,200 checks won’t go out until late summer for some people.

This was pretty much inevitable. Standing up programs like this in a matter of weeks was never going to be easy. But the very fact that they’re running into problems is evidence of just how popular they are. Take the small business loan program, for example. It has already approved $50 billion in loans in just three days and looks like it will be oversubscribed within weeks:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday asked congressional leaders to swiftly commit another $250 billion to replenish a new small business coronavirus program that is being overwhelmed by surging demand….Democrats haven’t rejected the proposal but they have said they want to prioritize other assistance, such as hazard pay for workers.

There are two things going on here. First, the demand for small business loans—despite the well-known issues with bank restrictions—is sky high. Since our goal is to keep as many as possible of these businesses solvent, adding more money to the fund makes sense.

However, there’s also a problem: in order for the loans to be forgiven, they have to be used mostly for payroll. But a lot of small-business workers have already been laid off and have applied for unemployment benefits. Thanks to the rescue bill, these benefits are, in most case, considerably more than they were paid for working. So why would they go back?

One answer could come from Chuck Schumer’s proposal to offer “hazard pay” to essential front-line workers so they don’t feel cheated by making less than they would if they were laid off. Perhaps this could be extended to workers who are rehired by shuttered businesses? If so, it would eliminate the motivation to stay on unemployment. More details to come, I’m sure.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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