Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show expanded byline information on articles

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

How Trump used his own court filing to claim an ‘assassination’ attempt 

Election 2024 latest news: Trump to hold rally in South Bronx; Biden hosts Kenya’s president

Veterans became eligible for billions. These firms saw a chance to profit.

The 28 best things to do in D.C. on Memorial Day weekend and next week

Opportunity came knocking twice for the Nationals. No one was home.

The Commanders believe they have their quarterback. Can they protect him?

The sooner the FDIC ‘boys club’ gets a new leader, the better

The military is encroaching on Mexican democracy

Iran has lost its president. Its people need to regain their freedom.

Tech firms’ Kenyan contractors lobby Biden for labor protections

NASA again delays the launch of Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft

TikTok says it removed an influence campaign originating in China

Ask Amy: Husband wants to ‘deepen’ friendship with single, younger woman

Miss Manners: Rude shopper’s comment hurt my husband

Carolyn Hax: Wife of local celebrity chef is tired of ‘foodie groupies’

A hidden threat

This ‘doomsday’ glacier is more vulnerable than scientists once thought

How cockroaches came to rule the world

Middle East conflict live updates: Israel tells negotiators to continue hostage talks after video released

How Mexico’s cartels infiltrated the tortilla business 

Stage at Mexican campaign rally collapses, killing nine

A teen dropped out of high school during WWII. Now 99, she just graduated.

Kittens or puppies? Animals left at shelter turned out to be foxes — again.

Would you eat this weird sandwich? Barry Enderwick would. 

In photos: Iranians attend funeral of fallen president Ebrahim Raisi 

Norway, Ireland and Spain recognize Palestinian state

In photos: Deadly tornadoes devastate southwest Iowa

Epic cowardice at NPR

Washington Post announces new subscription plans in bid to boost revenue

Israel returns seized AP equipment after stopping Gaza video feed

Budget airlines are dropping notorious fees. What changed?

9 rules for boarding a flight like a civilized person

At long last, Southwest is now part of Google Flights

WAUKESHA, WI - MAY 1st: Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Wednesday May 1st, 2024.  (Photo by Sara Stathas for the Washington Post)

Health

Well+Being

Opinions

Higher Education

Education

https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/

Coronavirus pandemic

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Tom Brenner

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday asked congressional leaders to swiftly commit an additional $250 billion to replenish the new $349 billion small-business <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> program that is being overwhelmed by surging demand.

President Trump said banks have processed $70 billion in taxpayer-backed loans for 250,000 small businesses since Friday, as companies seek emergency help to deal with the enormous business disruption caused by the pandemic.

He did not say, though, how many of those loans have been approved or how many firms have received any of the money. And his data suggests the program has reached a small fraction of U.S. companies: There are 30 million small businesses in the United States that employ 60 million people.

“We’ll be running out of money pretty quickly, which is a good thing in this case, not a bad thing,” Trump told reporters.

Republicans will try to advance the matter through Congress immediately. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he hoped to pass the cash infusion through the Senate on Thursday. The program allows companies with fewer than 500 employees to seek taxpayer-backed loans from banks, and these loans are forgivable if the companies meet certain worker-retention metrics, among other things. The federal government would then reimburse the banks for making the loans.

Democrats haven’t rejected the White House request, but they have said they want to include other emergency aid, such as hazard pay for workers, as part of any new deal.

The Small Business Administration initiative, called the Paycheck Protection Program, was created as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue bill enacted late last month. Many companies are scrambling for assistance, as the entire U.S. economy has been upended because of rolling shutdowns ordered by state and local governments. As Americans stay home and many of these companies close their doors, their revenue has fallen sharply. Many have laid off workers but still face rent and utility payments, among other obligations.

The surge in demand for these loans overwhelmed the systems at many banks, and a number of firms found the process impossible to navigate Friday. Some 250,000 companies have had their applications processed, according to Trump, but it could not be learned how many had actually applied.

The White House has made numerous adjustments to the program in the past week to expand it for applicants and make it more attractive to banks originating the taxpayer-backed loans. Officials have raised the processing fee that banks can charge and ensured that churches and faith-based firms can apply, among other things.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who spearheaded the program — has led the charge in demanding more money.

McConnell said he would speak with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and would “hope to approve further funding for the Paycheck Protection Program by unanimous consent or voice vote during the next scheduled Senate session on Thursday.”

That would require Democrats to agree. Schumer declined to answer questions during a conference call with reporters Tuesday about how Democrats planned to proceed, but he made clear they were pushing for other priorities, including ensuring hazard pay equivalent to $25,000 yearly for workers who have been forced to remain on the job during the pandemic.

Democrats could also try to use the GOP demand for small-business funding as leverage to advance other priorities. On Tuesday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held a conference call with other Democratic leaders and indicated she plans to work with House and Senate Democratic leaders to compile a list of their priorities to guide negotiations with Mnuchin, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

The White House and Treasury Department have devoted enormous resources to get the PPP up and running, spending less time on other elements of the rescue law — including an expansion of unemployment insurance and $1,200 direct payments to individuals.

As part of the PPP, businesses with fewer than 500 employees are eligible for loans of up to $10 million. Business owners will not have to pay them back if they meet certain requirements, including using 75 percent of the money to retain or rehire employees. Businesses can receive a $10,000 loan advance that does not have to be repaid, the SBA has said. It’s unclear whether the Treasury Department or the SBA will ever disclose the identities of the companies receiving the taxpayer-funded loans.

Small businesses worry $349 billion loan program isn’t enough

Bank of America said Monday it had received 178,000 applications from firms seeking $32.9 billion in loans as companies clamor to qualify for the $349 billion SBA program.

Wells Fargo never formally started taking applications, but by Monday morning, it said so many people had expressed preliminary interest that it had already reached the $10 billion cap it had set for loans under the program.

Democrats and Republicans have said in recent days that the program would probably need to be expanded, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/04/06/trump-democrats-coronavirus-stimulus-trillion/" target=_blank>Democrats have called for other extensions, too</a>, such as more unemployment insurance benefits for laid-off workers. <a href="https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c/c/cc4de80f-0976-448f-84bb-53af12e7570b/A52BA87EE1DEC7D97F3CC7ABA94D9EBF.ppp-implementation-underserved.pdf" target=_blank>Senate Democrats on Tuesday asked</a> Mnuchin and SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza to ensure that a portion of the PPP funding was directed toward companies owned by women, minorities and veterans, among others, particularly in rural and underserved areas.

In an interview Tuesday with CNN, Pelosi said Democrats would want to ensure “certain considerations” were in place before agreeing to Mnuchin’s request for more funding for the program.

“We want to make sure that the program is administered in a way that does not solidify inequality in how people have access to capital, but instead [is a] benefit to everyone who qualifies for it,” Pelosi said.

At the same time, some Democrats said the program might have to grow even more. In an interview with The Washington Post, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) said he, Pelosi and other lawmakers had spoken with Mnuchin and urged the secretary to relax the limits on the program so businesses with up to 1,000 employees can apply. Neal said Democrats also told Mnuchin he might have to ask for more than $250 billion.

“We urged him to go higher,” Neal said Democrats told Mnuchin. “You might need to get it up to a trillion.”

The discussions over the small-business program come in the context of wider talks over a follow-up piece of rescue legislation that would inject more funding on multiple fronts. Less than two weeks after enactment of the $2 trillion relief bill, the largest such economic rescue in U.S. history, lawmakers of both parties and the administration have come to view another rescue bill as inevitable as the novel coronavirus brutalizes the economy. But they differ on the details, with Democrats pushing for more help for health-care workers, the unemployed and others, as Republicans focus more on business relief.

Many businesses and bankers have expressed confusion — and exasperation — at how the small-business program was rolled out, with some fearing that they had to make monumental decisions immediately or risk their companies’ futures.

Todd Ahlberg, who co-owns a San Francisco-based dog grooming company called Mudpuppy’s Tub &amp; Scrub, said he has had to furlough all of his employees with the hope of eventually bringing them back when businesses reopen. He said he faces the predicament of deciding whether to rehire all of his employees when there is no business just to apply for the loan, even though the terms — including whether he will have to repay it — are confusing.

“It would be a disaster to reopen with debt,” he said. “We wouldn’t be able to hang on.”

While some lawmakers have pressed the Treasury Department and SBA for more guidance on how the program works, the loudest calls have been for an expansion. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tweeted Tuesday that “the demand for the Paycheck Protection Program has been overwhelming.”

He wrote that he had spoken with Mnuchin on Tuesday morning and will “support his request for more money for America’s small businesses. Following the Senate’s approval, the House should move swiftly to do the same.”

The program is supposed to encourage small businesses to stop laying off employees, after 10 million workers sought unemployment claims late last month. The unemployment rate is expected to surge far beyond 10 percent this spring, and it could stay there into next year. White House officials have said they want to help enact policies that will lead to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/07/trump-china-economy-coronavirus/">sharp economic rebound this year</a>, but economists have predicted that is unlikely to occur.

Small businesses, which employ nearly half of the United States’ private-sector workers, have said they are facing long waits, confusing rules and rejection as they scramble to secure loans through the fund. Many banks have restricted access to their existing customers and say that while they have begun processing the loans, they lack the proper SBA paperwork to finish the process and turn the money over to the businesses.

There are still some unanswered questions about how the program works, including what kind of documentation they need to collect from the small businesses, banking industry officials say.

“It’s a throughput issue. How much volume you can get through the system,” said Paul Merski, an executive vice president at the Independent Community Bankers of America. It’s currently a “trickle,” he said.

Community bankers have been particularly concerned that once more big banks begin processing loans — Citigroup went online Monday — the money would be quickly exhausted. “The small-business borrower demand is overwhelming,” Merski said.

Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of Main Street Alliance, which includes 30,000 small-business owners, said the program needs more than just more money. “The rollout was a train wreck,” she said.

Small-business owners are already in various stages of desperation, Ballantyne said. Some closed their doors last month, while others are days away from laying off employees. “We don’t have weeks to wait to save these businesses,” she said.

The program suffers from design flaws that need to be addressed, she said. The money should be distributed by the Treasury Department, perhaps in partnership with local or state governments, instead of banks, she said. And business owners should be given grants not loans, she said.

“That could move money more quickly. Take out this administrative layer of thousands of banks trying to disburse the money,” she said.

—<i> Seung Min Kim, Aaron Gregg and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.</i>

Harvard University, A.B. in Latin American Literature 

Erica Werner has worked at The Washington Post since 2017 and is based in Southern California. Previously she covered Congress with a focus on economic policy. Prior to the Post she worked at the Associated Press.

Erica Werner

New York State Associated Press Young Journalist of the Year

Cornell University, BA in history

Jeff Stein is the White House economics reporter for The Washington Post. He was a crime reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and, in 2014, founded the local news nonprofit the Ithaca Voice in Upstate New York. He was also a reporter for Vox.

Jeff Stein

Columbia University, MBA

Columbia University, MS in journalism

University of Texas, BS in journalism

Renae Merle is an editor on The Washington Post's Style desk. 