Kirk Meurer was on monitor to have one in every of his greatest years ever in his enterprise putting in workplace furnishings within the Cleveland
Kirk Meurer was on monitor to have one in every of his greatest years ever in his enterprise putting in workplace furnishings within the Cleveland space. However when firms started sending their staff residence final spring, his enterprise dried up virtually in a single day.
“Though we didn’t should shut down just like the eating places and bars and the journey industries, it didn’t matter,” he stated. “The enterprise wasn’t there.”
After some delays, Mr. Meurer received cash via the federal Paycheck Safety Program, which he thought could be sufficient to maintain him till enterprise rebounded. However because the pandemic dragged on and places of work pushed again their reopening dates to the summer time, then to the autumn, then into subsequent yr, it grew to become clear the corporate would want extra assist to outlive.
“It’s wonderful how briskly you possibly can burn via cash once you’ve received nothing coming in and all of the overhead to keep up,” Mr. Meurer stated.
In current weeks, his firm, Modular Programs Technicians, obtained a $10,000 grant from a brand new state fund to assist small companies. He additionally received cash underneath a program that refunded $eight billion from the state staff’ compensation fund.
“It helped,” Mr. Meurer he stated. “It’s not practically sufficient, however they did what they may.”
The cash for the Ohio grant program, and from another current state assist efforts, really got here from the federal authorities. As a part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act final spring, Congress created a $150 billion fund that states might faucet in responding to the virus. They got extensive latitude in utilizing the cash — so long as they did so earlier than the tip of the yr.
Because the pandemic has flared anew, nevertheless, it has grow to be clear that the financial disaster will final effectively into subsequent yr, by which level the federal cash will likely be gone and state budgets will likely be unable to select up the slack. So states are racing to make use of what’s left of the CARES Act cash to shore up their economies and construct a buffer for the winter.