. And it's not the first time it has run out of money, only to send lawmakers scrambling to allocate more.more than $746 billion in forgivable loans to 9 million borrowers since last April. It's one of the most popular Covid-19 relief programs, despite funding challenges, ever-changing rules and fraud concerns. The take-up has been widespread in part because businesses can have the government-backed debt wiped clean if they spend most of the money on payroll.
The original March 31 cutoff also became a problem because Biden had just enacted new rules to ensure that loans reached the smallest, hardest hit businesses that had long strained to gain access to the program, including the self-employed, business owners with criminal records and those with student loan delinquencies.
The funding issue also creates complications for other changes lawmakers had been planning to make to the program. The National Federation of Independent Business, which advocates for small firms, is on the sidelines after finding in a recent survey that few businesses were either planning to apply for PPP loans or considering it. Small Business Majority, another advocacy organization, wants Congress to consider other relief options for the hardest-hit businesses and those that have been "left behind by PPP," including grants, said John Arensmeyer, the group's founder and CEO.
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