If you look in that link though, small business is defined differently by NAICS code. Some business types are defined by number of employees, up to 1,500 total. Others are defined by maximum revenue. For full-service restaurant, it says $8 million in annual revenue, with both Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris exceed by a large margin. Ultimately though, the program was intended to keep people employed and off unemployment, and the only chance of that was for it to apply to the bigger companies as well. They just underfunded it. Estimates are that it needs at least $1T for that, so they’re adding more, but it still won’t be enough for everyone. The big companies got in first because of existing banking relationships and having accountants/lawyers on staff who were prepared with the paperwork necessary. Us small business owners had to find all the documents ourselves, and debate what some of the questions are asking for or whether a question applies to us or not. There were lots of people getting the word out, but not a lot of support for the process itself. Then most banks put it through their normal loan review process, which at our credit union, was nearly 2 weeks, only to be approved in time for the money to have run out. Other banks submitted the request to reserve the funds first, then put it through the review process. In either case, it is 100% guaranteed with minimal documentation required, so shouldn’t have required all that much on their parts. However, they were basically thrown into this by the government, most weren’t SBA lenders originally. It’s all just a mess. If this had happened a year ago, my business would have been closed already. This year we had some savings to use and continue to pay our employees, but that’s almost exhausted, so hoping PPP comes through soon.
