Biden Highlights P.P.P. Support as Issues Persist With Lending Program

On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Mr. Biden’s nominee to run the Small Enterprise Administration, Isabel Guzman, by an 81-to-17 vote.

Regardless of the issues, Mr. Biden was met with reward in Chester, Pa., when he visited Smith Flooring, a Black-owned enterprise that provides and installs flooring. White Home officers stated the store reduce payroll during the last 12 months, from 22 union staff to 12, after revenues declined by 20 p.c throughout the pandemic. It has survived, the officers stated, thanks partially to 2 rounds of loans from the Paycheck Safety Program, which Congress established final 12 months throughout the Trump administration to assist small companies.

“It is a nice outfit. It is a union store,” Mr. Biden stated in short remarks. Its staff, he stated, “work just like the satan, they usually could make an honest wage, a residing wage.”

The homeowners of Smith Flooring, Kristin and James Smith, secured their second mortgage from this system as a part of one of many Biden administration’s modifications, which created a two-week unique interval for sure very small companies to obtain loans. They thanked Mr. Biden for his efforts and for visiting Chester.

Mr. Biden’s support invoice, signed final week, added $7 billion to this system and funded others to assist struggling companies, together with a $28 billion grant fund for eating places. The regulation additionally put aside extra cash for different reduction efforts run by the Small Enterprise Administration, together with a long-delayed grant program for music golf equipment and different live-event companies, which the company stated would begin accepting purposes early subsequent month.

Lenders are scrambling to hold out the administration’s modifications to the Paycheck Safety Program and end processing a flood of purposes earlier than March 31. The American Institute of Licensed Public Accountants referred to as the deadline “unrealistic,” and 10 banking teams despatched a letter to lawmakers urging Congress to present them extra time.