To their credit, the Town of North Hempstead, Nassau County and the state of New York have all presented programs intended to help small businesses threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Hempstead rolled out four ideas last week, including extended hours for commercial construction, preference for Nassau County businesses in purchasing goods and services and allowing additional outside seating for restaurants to compensate for the reduced density requirements.
We don’t see the point of giving Nassau County businesses an advantage in the purchasing process. If Suffolk County did the same, the advantages would more or less cancel each other out and if New York City did the same, Nassau businesses would probably lose out. And like other trade protections, Nassau would probably end up paying more for goods and services
Allowing restaurants to have more seating, on the other hand, could be very helpful – provided the legislation allows for more than some tables in a parking lot.
The town, working with local villages, should encourage the closing of streets on certain nights to permit outdoor dining. Or the reduction of car lanes to give restaurants additional room for dining tables. Or both.
We would add the suggestion that a plan be developed to rezone business districts to permit retail and residential buildings. The case-by-case basis now used by villages across the North Shore serves to chase away developers.
This was bad before the pandemic. It is now malpractice during a pandemic and its aftermath.
Richard Kessel, the chairman of Nassau’s Industrial Development Agency, has called on the state Legislature to grant IDAs “temporary” authority to aid clothing stores, dry cleaners, restaurants, bars, diners and other Main Street mainstays.
This is another of those long-overdue ideas. IDAs have been assisting just about everyone but Main Street businesses for years with construction tax breaks. Kessel suggests the IDA be given the power to award grants or loans to Main Street businesses.
Nassau County also said it will offer $500,000 in loans to help small businesses, nonprofits and landlords in a bid to distribute up to $10 million from a new state lending program.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of a $100 million loan fund to provide flexible and affordable loans to help small businesses, focusing on minority and women-owned enterprises. Our only suggestion is to expand the businesses qualifying to all businesses that are truly small – 150 employees or less – and add more money.
Most, if not, all of these ideas will help businesses in New York, the hardest-hit state in the country.
But as the captain said in “Jaws,” upon seeing the great white shark “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” than the proposals put forth by the local governments.
The epic economic devastation caused by the Trump administration’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic is going to require more money and some imaginative thinking to help get the economy back on its feet as we reopen.
Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned last week that the economic damage from the pandemic could stretch through the end of 2021.
Over the past nine weeks, new jobless claims have hit 39 million, and the official unemployment rate is expected to approach 20 percent this month. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the real rate may be closer to 25 percent.
These Depression-level unemployment rates reflect the carnage taking place among retail businesses large and small.
And devastation to the hospitality industry – bars, restaurants and hotels – is even worse. They accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost in March and estimates about how many will shutter their doors for good range from 30 percent to 50 percent.
Restrictions are being lifted, but protocols already being readied in most states will limit indoor business to 50 percent of prior capacity and restrict seating to safe distances of six feet.
Congress approved $660 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses retain employees. The first $350 billion went mainly to customers favored (read big customers) by the big banks that processed many of the loans for the SBA.
Small businesses didn’t really see any money until the second round and the program only provided loans that could be converted into grants for employees for eight weeks. Congress is now considering proposals to cover expenses for 16 weeks and possibly 24. That would be a big win for small businesses.
The Democratic-led House passed a $3 trillion relief package in May. It was not perfect, but it did include nearly $875 billion in needed money for states, counties and cities.
The legislation also included a special fund based on the “rate of infection” pressed by New York House members of both parties and the elimination of a $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes approved by Republicans that took aim at New York and other blue states with relatively generous services.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, turned down the House proposal and said he’s in no hurry for the Senate to offer its own proposal.
In the meantime, legislators have begun to get creative in finding ways to keep businesses open and people employed.
U.S. Rep. Pramilla Jayapal, Democrat from Washington and a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has gained bipartisan support for a proposal for the federal government to guarantee workers’ salaries.
The bill would cover salaries and benefits for workers making up to $90,000 a year for as long as six months – allowing businesses to rehire furloughed and laid-off employees – and distribute grants to businesses to cover operating costs. It would cost $654 billion over six months and benefit more than 36 million workers.
This concept, used by several European countries, eliminates the need for many people to apply to state employment systems ill-equipped to handle the volume of claims resulting from the pandemic. It also allows more businesses to keep their doors open. And addresses the expected length of the economic downtown.
The pandemic may also force the federal government to re-evaluate some hot-button issues such as universal health care and immigration reform. The COVID-19 virus offers stark proof that the inability of people to afford health care or the fear of getting treatment can have deadly consequences for you as well.
These ideas may be difficult for some to swallow.
But it is worth considering that, according to Trump administration scientists, we are only facing the first wave of a pandemic that has already cost 100,000 lives and sunk the economy.
Clearly, we are in a new world that needs new thinking.
