For now, small businesses are just trying to understand the loan program they’ve been offered and are hoping that more help is on the way.

“If the government effort to shore up the economy doesn’t really take care of the Main Street businesses, life in America won’t be the same,” Neitzel said. “It will be permanent damage to the way our communities work.”

“Her urgent task is to ensure these small-business owners get cash immediately, as quickly as possible, to give them relief, and to make sure they are giving relief to their employees,” said Renee Johnson, senior government affairs manager at Main Street Alliance, a small business advocacy group.

For businesses, the package aims to create a lifeline by delaying at least some decisions about which bills to pay and which debts to forgive. For instance, it gives small businesses access to forgivable loans that they can use to pay their rent and workers. And the potential forgiveness, not just the funds, may be crucial for many to survive.

The stimulus plan to protect the U.S. economy from the ravages of Covid-19 unlocks hundreds of billions of dollars for small businesses -- yet the system set to distribute the money is already overwhelmed.

Our most immediate need is to expand the small business grant program. This will help keep employees on payroll much more effectively than the loan program, and it will keep small businesses out of debt. This third package passed by the Senate—and set to receive a vote by the House as early as Friday—is a start on which we can improve.

Congress passed the $2 trillion COVID-19 aid bill Friday afternoon, which means that there is some help coming from the federal government for small businesses.

But for the last couple of weeks, those small businesses have been scrambling to make payroll, sort out which staff they can keep on — and which they can’t — and figure out some way to keep money coming in.

The coronavirus pandemic is having a devastating effect on small businesses across the country, but black-owned businesses are likely to feel it more severely—and for a longer period of time.

Since the first case of coronavirus in the U.S. was confirmed last month, restaurants and food businesses around the country have been affected in various ways.

A week ago, Mark Canlis’s restaurant in Seattle was offering a $135 tasting menu to a bustling dining room every night. Then the coronavirus outbreak changed everything.

In Seattle, already hard hit by the outbreak, a recent survey found that 60% of small businesses there are considering wage cuts and staffing cutbacks, while 35% said they may have to close.

The coronavirus is posing a growing threat to the U.S. economy as the outbreak shifts from a short-term headache for travel and manufacturing companies into a broader crisis 

Seattle restaurant owner Fon Spaulding of Kati Vegan Thai near Amazon's Salt Lake Union offices says she'll need financial help to keep her place open and her workers employed.

Downtowns are fragile places, Downtown Seattle Association CEO Jon Scholes said. They depend on high volumes of office workers and tourists, both of which are in short supply due to the spread of the coronavirus.