Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is pushing for Congress to approve a second round of Paycheck Protection Program money. It's a loan meant to help small businesses impacted by COVID-19 pay their employees.
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was plagued with problems. Rubio says that larger loans were approved for big businesses in its first round, leaving little money left over for small ones. Rubio is looking into these pitfalls so that if a second round of the money is passed, the program will be improved.
"And so, by enacting a second round of tailored PPP assistance, we can help build upon the success of the first round, fix some of the problems that were identified through that first round and protect small businesses through the winter as we walk that bridge towards what we hope will be a widely distributed vaccine that gets us to a point where we're no longer dealing with many of these restrictions," Rubio says.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 70% of Florida businesses received PPP loans. The program covered eight weeks of employee payroll while lockdowns were in place. After the program was launched, it ran out of money in two weeks. It was later replenished in late April, and more businesses were able to opt-in. Rubio says this expansion allowed businesses of all sizes to get aid.
