Senate Extends PPP For Two Months

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill extending the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) until the end of May, which will give pandemic-beleaguered businesses more time to apply, Reuters reported. Additionally, the government will have more time process the requests.

The bill was passed 92-7 and had already been approved by the House, according to Reuters. Now it will go before President Joe Biden for final signature. Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

Biden, in a news conference, said he hopes for a robust turnaround in the U.S. economy, especially as more people get vaccinated, Reuters reported.

The PPP loans, meant to help businesses affected by the pandemic, can turn into grants if certain conditions are met. Without congressional action, the PPP would have expired at the end of the month and not given the time for applications to be completed, according to Reuters.

The new legislation gives the Small Business Administration (SBA) another 30 days beyond May 31 to complete processing loan applications, Reuters reported. Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Ben Cardin said that was significant because the $1.9 trillion relief bill signed by Biden recently expanded eligibility for the program to include more first-time borrowers, including nonprofits.

The new round of PPP funding, passed in late February, make the forgivable loans more accessible to people like gig workers and sole proprietors, along with the smallest of the small-to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), PYMNTS reported.

That is a response to complaints about the earlier rounds of the PPP, which often ended up excluding the truly small businesses, as they were disadvantaged when it came to collecting. Despite representing 98 percent of U.S. SMBs, the businesses with less than 20 employees only got 45 percent of the funds.