Managed services News
Paycheck Protection Program: 5 Things You Need To Know
Steven Burke
CRN spoke with solution providers regarding their experience with the Paycheck Protection Program. Here is what we found.
Severely Underfunded
The biggest problem with the PPP is it is severely underfunded given the financial impact of the pandemic on the 30 million-plus small businesses in the U.S., said solution providers.
“If I provided a forecast like this, I would have been fired,” said one channel executive, who did not want to be identified. “They need at least three times the $349 billion initially approved. Whoever came up with that initial estimate for small businesses blew it.”
Some small-business advocates have estimated that $1 trillion in funding at minimum is needed to support small businesses hit hard by the pandemic.
Allen Falcon, founder and CEO of Cumulus Global, a 14-year-old Westborough, Mass.-based cloud solution provider that has been approved for PPP funding, said he has seen some estimates that if all businesses that qualify applied, it would require $2.7 trillion in funding.
Congress needs to understand that nothing less than survival is at stake for many small businesses that need the funding, said Falcon. “My CFO and I are running scenarios that say what happens if 30 percent of our customers don’t survive. That is not out of the realm of possibility.”
Falcon is urging his colleagues that have not yet obtained funding to call their congressmen and senators to push for more relief. “We urgently need expansion of these SBA programs. I’m surprised the $349 billion from the PPP lasted as long as it did,” he said.
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