MIDLAND, Texas — Small businesses struggling through COVID-19 have the opportunity to find some relief.
Congress signed the CARES Act into law and with it comes the Paycheck Protection Program. This will allow businesses with 500 or fewer employees to apply for a loan starting on April 3, 2020 to help cover certain expenses from February 15, 2020 until June 30, 2020.
But some businesses are still trying to determine whether or not they should apply for this loan.
"We need to review that to see if it really is something we need to do or not, if it’s really applicable to us at this point in time, if we would need to and what the restrictions are on it and such, and what it means to us, and how we do our business in the next few weeks," said one local business owner who wished to remain anonymous.
But he still recognizes the importance that this loan could have when it comes to helping out his employees through this pandemic. He understands the need to continue to cover his payroll along with his business' rent payments.
This, in turn, would allow the businesses to have an easier time of retaining their staff despite the change in business hours.
"I suppose the other aspect is it allows for if somebody wants to pay servers even though they’re not necessarily putting in the hours to be able to at least provide the servers with some some income, maybe some hours, so they will be available when things ramp back up and you’re not looking at a loss of staff," he said.
But this businessman is proud of the support his business has received despite the difficult circumstances.
"You know this is only our basically our second week of pick up so we had good response from those especially those that have come in and spent time here and working with some of our regulars," he said.
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