Yesterday, the US House passed a $484 billion COVID-19 relief bill that replenishes exhausted funds for two programs aimed at providing aid for small businesses: the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The legislation, which passed the Senate on Tuesday, also contains money for hospitals and other health care providers as well as COVID-19 testing. This is the fourth stimulus measure passed by Congress since the virus outbreak and was signed into law by the President today.
The PPP and EIDL programs as well as other SBA loan flexibility programs, have been the centerpiece of Congress’s small business COVID-19 recovery efforts. The legislation provides $320 billion in new funding for the PPP after previous funds were exhausted a week ago, after only 13 days in existence. Of these new funds, $60 billion will be directed at the smallest businesses ($30 billion for enterprises with less than $10 million in assets and $30 billion for enterprises with between $10 million and $50 million in assets). PPP loans are available to qualifying businesses on a first-come, first-served basis, with less than 500 employees, and can be converted into grants, with no payback requirements if the funds are used over an 8-week period on qualifying payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utilities expenses. The EIDL program, which also ran out of money and provides support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue as a result of COVID-19, received $60 billion in funding.
The eBay Government Relations team will continue to monitor developments at the federal, state and local level and provide regular updates about small business policies and assistance that may be made available, and will continue to advocate for resources and policies that support small businesses in this challenging time.
Please connect to eBay’s COVID-19 Central page for more information related to eBay’s responses to COVID-19 and to the eBay Mainstreet COVID-19 page for more information related to local, state and federal COVID-19 resources.