Thank you, Dr. Choucair, for your incredible work as the White House Vaccinations Coordinator, and for your leadership at Kaiser Permanente. The SBA looks forward to continuing to partner with you as we work toward President Biden’s goal of declaring independence from COVID-19.
It is great to again be joining SBA’s Getting Back on Track: Help is Here webinar series. As always, a huge thank you to the team at Public-Private Strategies Institute for helping us put these webinars together and reaching out to their incredible networks.
I am so grateful to all of you who have joined us online today. This week, we’re honored to welcome representatives from the nation’s leading small business organizations and diversity chambers of commerce – including National ACE, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Black Chambers Inc. and the National LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce.
You all have been essential partners in our efforts to distribute much-needed relief to our nation’s small businesses, and your continued collaboration is crucial to achieving our vision of an equitable small business economy.
As I said at our kickoff Getting Back on Track webinar, my top priority as the voice for America’s 30 million small businesses and innovative startups is to break down the historic barriers to capital, markets and networks that have stood in the way of women, people of color and other underserved entrepreneurs for far too long and bridge the gaps to support ALL our nation’s small businesses.
The team at SBA has been working diligently to be entrepreneurial and agile prioritizing customer-centric, technology forward and equitable approaches as we design and implement our COVID relief programs – we know how hard this disaster has been on so many small businesses– especially the smallest of the small businesses and those owned by women and people of color -- who were often left out of early rounds of relief.
I am proud that in 2021, 96 percent of PPP loans went to small businesses with 20 employees or less – and 32 percent of our PPP loans went to businesses located in low and moderate income, or LMI, communities.
And in the $28.6 billion dollar Restaurant Revitalization Fund Program -- more than one-third of the 362,000 applications came from our smallest businesses and more than half came from women, veterans and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who were given priority access to the program by Congress in the American Rescue Plan.
More relief is needed beyond PPP and Restaurants Fund, and we are continuing to offer low-cost, long term debt with deferred payments into 2022 through our core COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan program – as well as grants through its companion Targeted EIDL Advance and Supplemental Targeted EIDL Advance for the low-income highly impacted businesses. The EIDL program, while less well-known than the PPP, allows small businesses to borrow funds directly from the government.
In one of my first acts as SBA Administrator, I increased the EIDL loan limit from $150,000 to $500,000 and lengthened the time of economic injury from 6 months to 24 months– to ensure that our EIDL recipients have enough working capital to get them to the other side of this crisis. And we’re working hard to bring that limit up to the $2 million that’s allowed by statute.
EIDL loans have been incredibly popular – and effective -- throughout the pandemic. Since the EIDL program was launched, the SBA has distributed four times the number of EIDL loans than our top 15 PPP program lenders – combined.
That is your government at work. And that sheer volume – 3.8 million at last count -- shows there is a great need for direct government assistance.
However, we know that making these resources available only gets us halfway there. We need to connect with the small businesses who were left out of previous rounds of relief and are in dire need of our help, and make sure they not only know about our programs, but also know how to apply for them.
Know that the SBA is here to help you navigate government resources through our field offices and local partners and coming soon through our Community Navigators Pilot program in which we will partner with trusted organizations and community champions who have direct access and connection to the small business owners who need us but don’t know how to find us.
Our teams and partners are also here to help you pivot and develop strategies for increased revenues. The SBA is not just about capital – but also about market access.
The federal marketplace is a key opportunity for SB growth - the federal government is the world’s largest buyer. We want our small businesses to be contract ready and help underserved entrepreneurs compete. President Biden recently announced on the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, an all-of-government effort to grow federal contracting with small disadvantaged businesses by 50 percent, that translates to an additional $100 billion dollars over five years.
We also want to help our innovative entrepreneurs and startups of tomorrow gain access to the funds and resources they need to scale up today. Our Small Business Innovation Research Fund, is called America’s Seed Fund, because together with its university-based counterpart, Small Business Technology Transfer program or STTR, it represents the world’s largest source of early-stage public finance. SBIR reserves a specific percentage of federal R&D funds for small businesses, and
helps move ideas from the lab to the marketplace. And our Growth Accelerator Fund Competition supports a network of incubators and accelerators to support the great diversity that exists across our innovative startups.
We know so many small businesses are still struggling. And the SBA wants every entrepreneur out there who is trying to find a way forward – to recover and build back better from this pandemic – to know they can count on us for support.
While our COVID relief programs have helped millions stay afloat, and while we are planning on ensuring our core SBA programs offer a strong road to recovery long-term, the most important thing we can do to bring our small businesses back is to put this virus in retreat. We need our marketplaces from main street to industrial and corporate centers to recover.
We’re making progress.
More than 300 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered and 63 percent of adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose.
We’ve seen a 94 percent decrease from COVID-19 cases since January of this year, and, for the first time since March 2020, the seven-day average of cases has been less than 15,000.
But all those numbers don’t add up to normal.
We’ve got to get those vaccination numbers up – so small businesses can open their doors and welcome back their customers.
During this month of action, the federal government is working hard to address the structural barriers that are keeping people from accessing vaccines.
To help small businesses give their workers time off to get a vaccine, President Biden announced a tax credit to fully reimburse small businesses that provide paid time off for vaccination and any side effects. And he called on every small business employer in the country to use it.
In addition, the President announced that through July 4th, the nation’s largest childcare providers will offer free childcare to parents and caregivers getting vaccinated and anybody recuperating from vaccination.
Small businesses employ half the nation’s workforce. If every small business has the resources they need to help their employees get vaccinated then we’ll be that much closer to beating this virus. We need small businesses across the country to join us in this month of action so we can see our Main Streets come alive, help our makers start making again, and bring the small business engine that drives our nation’s economy roaring back.
And until we get to that new normal, we need to make sure we’re reaching every entrepreneur who needs our help. If we’re going to bring our economy back, we’ve got to bring back our small businesses. I look forward to partnering with all of you to help connect our entrepreneurs to our COVID relief programs – as well as our vast range of core programs for small business owners at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey.
Together, we’ll get our small businesses back on track.