Congratulations to President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris. We’re happy to celebrate this historic moment! We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and working for our small and micro businesses with this Administration. And our work is cut out for us.
Today, Joseph R. Biden Jr. became the 46th President of the United States. His administration begins as the world enters the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and a host of challenges.
Few periods in our nation’s history have been more challenging or difficult than the one we’re in now.
President Joe Biden
A once-in-a-century virus silently stalks the country.
It’s taken as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II.
Millions of jobs have been lost.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed.
A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.
A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear.
And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.
To overcome these challenges – to restore the soul and to secure the future of America – requires more than words.
It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy:
Unity.
We see hope and promise in tomorrow for our small businesses.
Before taking office, President Biden indicated that COVID-19 relief would be his first priority. His “Build Back Better” plan includes a $1.9 trillion package designed to provide direct relief and support to families and communities struggling through the pandemic.
On the small business front, the plan aims to:
- Invest $35 billion in government funds to generate $175 billion in low-interest loans to shore up small businesses.
- Provide $15 billion in grants for the hardest-hit small businesses.
- Extend unemployment benefits to self-employed individuals and gig workers.
- Ensure support for restaurants, bars, and other businesses that had suffered disproportionately, through the Community Credit Corporation at USDA.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate began confirmation hearings for some of President Biden’s top Cabinet picks. Janet Yellen, nominated to lead the Treasury Department, emphasized her focus on COVID-19 relief if confirmed.
I will be focused from day one on providing support to America’s workers and to small business, putting into effect as quickly and efficiently as I can the relief in the bill that was already passed and then, over time, working for a second package that I think we need to get through these dark times before the vaccination program enables us to go back to life as we knew it.
Janet Yellen
President Biden also selected Isabel Casillas Guzman, the current director of California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate, to succeed Jovita Carranza as Director of the Small Business Administration. Confirmation hearings for this position have yet to take place.
Again, we look forward to working with the new administration and engaging our entire network in service to our small businesses.