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The smallest businesses that have had the most difficulty accessing forgivable loans from the paycheck protection program will soon receive additional help.

The Biden government on Monday announced changes to the pandemic relief program, which aims to help small and minority businesses, as well as individual entrepreneurs.

Starting Wednesday, the Small Business Administration will only accept PPP loan applications from companies with fewer than 20 employees for two weeks.

The administration is also making various changes to the program, including increasing loan amounts for sole proprietorships and sole proprietorships, removing restrictions on criminal student loan debt and convictions for non-fraud crimes, and allowing some non-civic entrepreneurs.

The aim is to expand access

The changes will even improve the playing field for the companies that make up the bulk of small businesses – 98% of small businesses employ fewer than 20 people but have only received 45% of PPP funding so far, according to the SBA. They also aim to eliminate racial gaps that have been seen in credit, as previous iterations of the program left out many minority-owned companies.

“It’s a great idea to make sure we give priority to small business owners and minority owners, as we’ve seen them excluded from the process,” said Marvin Owens, chief engagement officer of Impact Shares and former senior director of economic development at the NAACP. “What you saw at the beginning of PPP was really an exposure of the differences in access to capital.”

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Supporting these companies is extremely important to the recovery of the US economy, as small businesses employ nearly half of all working Americans, according to the SBA.

“This is one of the main economic drivers of our country,” said Awesta Sarkash, manager of government affairs for Small Business Majority, a left-wing advocacy group. “Our main employers are injured and you are seeing a ripple effect.”

Here’s what small business owners need to know before the application window opens on Wednesday.

1. Companies can request either a first or a second drawing

If you are self-employed or own a business with fewer than 20 employees, lenders will prioritize your PPP loan applications starting Wednesday.

Eligible companies can apply for a PPP loan for the first or second drawing, depending on their individual circumstances. To qualify for the SBA’s second round of unsuccessful loans, companies must have issued, or plan to do, all of their first loan and demonstrate that they have seen sales declines of 25% or more for each quarter of 2020.

2. The self employed can now receive more forgivable funding

One of the biggest changes to PPP is the way it calculates loans for millions of self-employed people, including sole proprietorships and independent contractors.

For companies with employees, PPP loans are typically 2.5 times the cost of wages. However, for one-person businesses with no payroll, lenders used the net income number from IRS 1040 Schedule C, which includes deductions. Because of this, some workers saw very low loan amounts in previous rounds of the program.

To address the problem, the SBA is revising the formula to adapt it to the needs of farmers. What this basically means is they instead calculate loan amounts from gross income rather than net income, said Chris Hurn, executive director of Fountainhead Commercial Capital.

“It makes a tremendous sense,” Hurn said, adding that it will make people money faster.

What you saw at the start of PPP was really an exposure of the differences in access to capital.

Michael Owens

Chief Engagement Officer, Impact Shares

3. Apply as soon as possible

Experts aren’t sure if two weeks is enough for all of the smallest businesses in need of help applying for PPP loans. With limited funding available, companies should apply as soon as possible.

If you want to apply, it means that you should collect your tax documents including Appendix C – either from 2019 or 2020 – and have them ready for submission on Wednesday. It may also be a good idea to contact a lender in your community or a lender you already have a relationship with to submit your records.

If you’re able to apply for a first round PPP loan right away, Hurn says you may have time to allocate the money and request a second draw.

What can come next

However, these changes are late in the game for the program, which was first established by the CARES Act in response to the coronavirus pandemic and currently expires in late March. That gives just a few weeks with the changes before the end of the program.

And it’s not clear if some of the changes made will be retroactive. This would be particularly important for sole proprietorships who have received small initial loans.

“Unfortunately, if you don’t extend the program beyond March 31, you won’t be as effective as you would like,” said Hurn.

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ON Semiconductor, a chip maker trying to meet the high demand for automotive components, expects to eliminate a bottleneck in the production of car chips by the second half of the year at the latest.

In an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday, CEO Hassane El-Khoury said the company is seeing a rush in orders for its products due to an industry-wide shortage of chips.

The shortage, which started when the demand for electronic products like computers increased during the pandemic, has forced automakers like General Motors and Ford to cut back on some vehicles.

“The orders were so popular that we can’t keep up, but we have the capacity,” said El-Khoury in an appearance on Mad Money. “We can support capacity for our chips. We have started the new demand and will get through this in a quarter or two.”

ON Semiconductor served multiple end markets and warned customers of low inventory levels in the later parts of the summer as consumers in their home country were laden with electronics. At the time, due to the economic consequences of coronavirus lockdowns, many companies were unsure whether executives would restrict or refrain from ordering components.

The latest cars, increasingly equipped with connected technologies and other functions, require numerous tiny chips for functions such as power management, power steering and infotainment systems.

The auto market is the biggest driver of all ON Semiconductor end markets, said El-Khoury.

“Driven mainly by the automotive industry, we are very well positioned,” he said. “We’re not just going to grow in the market. We’re going to grow above the market, just like in the industry, really across the strength in each and every one of our end markets, which is a great place.”

Of the five segments that ON Semiconductor serves, the automotive industry accounts for almost a third of sales. The company is also a supplier to industrial and military, communications, computer and consumer markets.

After total revenue declined by around 8% in the first half of 2020 at the start of the coronavirus lockdowns, the computer segment recovered for the first time in the second quarter. Auto sales wouldn’t rise until the fourth quarter, when it was up 6% year over year.

For the full year, ON Semiconductor’s revenue declined 4.8% to approximately $ 5.26 billion. Revenue declined 6% in 2019 to around $ 5.52 billion.

Based on order trends and order backlog, ON Semiconductor forecasts sales of between $ 1.41 billion and $ 1.51 billion in the current quarter. If the short end of the forecast is hit, business would grow at least 10% from the first quarter report last year.

ON Semiconductor shares sold more than 3% on Monday, outpacing declines in the overall market. Despite a negative start to the week, the stock is up more than 23% to $ 40.44.

People gather to ask McDonald’s Corporation to raise workers wages to a minimum wage of $ 15 and to demand union rights on May 23, 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

President Joe Biden announced the American Rescue Plan in January, which includes raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour. Since the president’s announcement, there has been a lot of debate about raising the minimum wage, particularly among business leaders.

While much of the American Rescue Plan has focused on COVID-19-related relief, the minimum wage hike is long overdue and the pandemic has only exacerbated the need for wages that can support American workers.

In the past 25 years, the minimum wage has increased by only $ 2.50 – from $ 4.75 an hour to $ 7.25 an hour – and the last increase was in 2009. Additionally, according to the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI) 31% of the workforce who would benefit most from an increased minimum wage.

Opponents of an increase in the minimum wage argue that doing so would harm American companies and force small and medium-sized businesses to lay off workers.

The US Black Chambers, Inc. (USBC) disagrees with this argument. The USBC, which represents 310,000 black-owned companies and 145 Black Chambers nationwide, believes that raising the minimum wage will have a significant impact on millions of Americans and their homes, reducing racial and gender wage inequality.

Even as 41% of black-owned businesses shut down due to COVID-19, black business owners continued to express their support for an increase in the minimum wage as it would have a significant impact on millions of American households and family outflow Poverty.

The EPI estimates that “almost one in four (23%) who would benefit is a black or Latin American woman”.

The USBC met with Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this month to discuss the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on black-owned companies and the way the Biden administration is working to help the companies that do it To offer help and support is needed most.

Even as 41% of black-owned businesses shut down due to COVID-19, black business owners continued to express their support for an increase in the minimum wage as it would have a significant impact on millions of American households and family outflow Poverty.

If black business, facing major obstacles outside of COVID-19, can hit a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour, then why can’t the rest of American business?

Raising the minimum wage won’t be easy for businesses, but it’s a significant step in bringing financial stability to parts of America that have long been overlooked.

Indeed, black-owned companies can see slower growth based on the number of employees they can afford (in addition to less access to capital), but that doesn’t stop the community from taking up the challenge.

Corporate America, let’s hit a minimum wage of $ 15 by 2025.

Ron Busby is President of the US Black Chambers, Inc.

Erick Vazquez receives the Pfizer vaccine during an event to vaccinate approximately 500 healthcare workers and adults over 65 years of age against COVID-19 organized by Labor Community Services, the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, and the St. Johns Well Child and Family Center shaped work of love, in Pico Union, February 13, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA.

Dania Maxwell | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that modified Covid-19 vaccines against new, emerging variants can be approved without the need for lengthy clinical trials.

The new guidelines, published in a 24-page document on the FDA’s website, would release the new vaccines as an amendment to a company’s originally approved emergency application, according to the FDA. The company would have to submit new data showing the modified vaccine produces a similar immune response and is safe, similar to annual flu vaccines.

“Preliminary reports from clinical trials evaluating COVID-19 vaccine candidates in several countries, including South Africa, have contributed to concerns that the vaccine may be less effective against variant B.1.351 than against the original virus,” the wrote Agency found in the document with reference to the strain in South Africa. “Therefore, there is an urgent need to initiate the development and evaluation of vaccines against these SARSCoV-2 variants.”

The updated guidelines come because U.S. health officials, including White House Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anthony Fauci, fear the virus could potentially mutate enough to evade the protection of current vaccines and reverse advances in the pandemic.

For the past few weeks, officials have urged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible before potentially new and even more dangerous variants of the virus emerge.

As of Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified 1,661 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, which were first identified in the UK. The agency has identified 22 cases of the B.1.351 strain from South Africa and five cases of P .1, a variant first identified in Brazil.

The FDA approved Pfizer and Moderna’s emergency vaccines in December, and the two drug makers have since announced plans to change their vaccines to target new variants. The guidelines could speed up the regulatory review process for the vaccines.

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