Covid-19 is changing our lives every single day. We are learning to work from home. Parents are learning how to be teachers. And local small businesses are trying to stay afloat. Many have had to close their doors to wait out this pandemic.
However, help might be just around the corner. Congress passed The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, CARES for short. The act provides an estimated $2 trillion to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. $377 billion of that is designated to help small businesses.
According to a recent NFIB poll, 92% of small businesses have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and over 50% say they will not survive more than two months without help.
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Locally, our businesses are already feeling the strain. Chris Schaefer at Dry point Distillers in Las Cruces says his business almost completely vanished.
“I’m hurting big time from this, my business has dropped 98% in the last week and I’ve got 4, 5 people not including myself that I pay an income for,” Schaefer said.
Part of the new stimulus package includes a Paycheck Protection Program where upon approval businesses can receive loans to cover payroll, rent and other expenses. Rob Black, CEO of the New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry, explains the benefits that program will have for New Mexico’s small businesses.
“You can get a loan for 8 weeks of your payroll amount and that money is supposed to move very fast and then if you retain those employees between February 15th and June 30th you get 100% of that loan turns into a grant. So, you don’t have to repay it… It applies to business up to 500 employees, which covers a vast majority of our businesses here in New Mexico,” Black said.
Ashley Wagner, also with NMACI, explains the fast turnaround of the program.
“Let me add as well that businesses can go to their participating small business administration lender bank or credit union to apply for the loan and be approved the same day,” Wagner said.
Aside from the loans being offered to small businesses, Dry Point Distillers saw another need in the community and a possible way to help fill those gaps in their bank account.
“We’re doing the hand sanitizer and so I pulled a couple employees in and I see that as an essential business,” Schaefer said.
What made it so essential was some of the feedback Chris was getting from the Las Cruces community.
“People contacting me from hospitals and stuff asking for hand sanitizer and that was a little disconcerting, but I’m just doing what I can. All of the materials, the hardest thing right now is getting the materials to produce the hand sanitizer,” Schaefer said.
Despite the new business idea, employees like Nick Clark worry about what the future holds.
“...the situation after it’s all over is probably my biggest fear. For especially New Mexico in general and other states that tend to be below the poverty line most of the time,” Clark said.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has created a rapid response economic task force to work on the current economic crisis and find solutions for the future. Black meets with the task force.
“We are meeting regularly to try to identify areas of opportunity to support businesses where they can. But also what are we doing to think post contagion, for recovery and it’s really enforcing our economic resilience as well as planning for that recovery. So, they have taken an active role in that,” Black said.
The state also recently launched a program to help. The Buy New Mexico Local program encourages citizens to support small businesses by shopping today for tomorrow. The platform allows users to purchase gift cards.
Local small businesses owners can also utilize the website to register their products.