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Valley business owners react to Paycheck Protection Program as Senate approves additional funding
Some businesses didn't manage to get the loans.
PHOENIX - On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved another $310 billion to help small businesses struggling in the COVID-19 crisis.
Under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the loan to the business is forgiven if most of the money is used to pay the employees. The bill could be on the President’s desk by the end of this week.
In Arizona, nearly 11,000 small businesses were approved to receive loan money from the first PPP in April, totaling more than #3.5 billion. While the numbers look impressive, there are more than half a million small businesses in Arizona, so there are businesses that have been left out in the cold.
Those affected by PPP speak
In Phoenix, Josh Garcia's deli was thrown a lifeline by the Federal government, as a result of PPP.
"[It] was a huge relief for us to be able to say we're going keep our doors open for the next couple of months, be able to pay our employees and be able to pay our bills," said Garcia.
Justin Piazza, however, was not so lucky. Piazza, who owns a Downtown Glendale pizzeria, was in the queue for PPP, but the $350 billion fund ran out of money before he could get it.
"50 publicly-traded companies got money. All got millions of dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars. I feel like we’ve been hung out to dry," said Piazza.
Piazza is frustrated and not hopeful he will see any money from the second round of PPP funding. He has three restaurants, and fears he will have to close at least one of them.
"You never want to be in a position where you have to ask for anything, but I wasn’t in that position in March. We were doing great," said Piazza. "I had money saved up for summer, and this just killed us. It really killed us."
Garcia, meanwhile, says he feels for his fellow small business owners, and encourages them to hang in there and keep trying to secure PPP funds.
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