The Paycheck Protection Program was certainly used as designed by the businesses in our area.
The program, known as PPP for short, was part of the CARES Act passed by Congress and signed by the President in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The program allowed businesses to apply for loans that could be forgivable if certain criteria were met and maintained. The loans were formula based and businesses had to apply through financial institutions. Maximum loan amounts were $10 million dollars and there were no minimums.
We pushed hard locally to get the information to our businesses and our local financial community really stepped to the plate. And, it worked.
According to information released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Cape/Jackson MSA had approximately 200 businesses receive loans through the program. With several of these in the higher dollar categories, there is no doubt this area received millions of dollars in support to keep businesses open and workers employed. This is exactly the aim of the PPP.
B Magazine did a deep dive into the information and listed local businesses receiving loans. In addition, they discussed the involvement from our local banks. A review of this article gives insight to the impact PPP had in our MSA.
While we wait to see if Congress and the President take any additional action to help our workers and our business community, let’s be thankful that, collectively, we used the PPP effectively.
