TAMPA, Fla (WFLA)- President Trump signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief and stimulus package into law Sunday night, sparing the country from a government shutdown and among other things, extending the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses that continue to struggle as the pandemic continues to keep people home.
The newest relief package will provide $325 billion in aid to small businesses, with $284.5 billion of that going to the Paycheck Protection Program.
Though the maximum loans are significantly lower than before— $2 million compared to $10 million— and businesses can only apply if they have less than 300 employees, this round of PPP loans will be similar in many ways to the first round of loans.
Business owners will have to use at least 60 percent of the loan toward payroll between eight and 24 weeks of loan disbursement.
Deadlines for this round of Paycheck Protection Program loans will be March 31.
During the first round of Paycheck Protection Program loans, nearly 404,000 loans worth more than $32 billion were distributed across Florida.
Earlier this year, more than 80,400 Paycheck Protection Program loans were approved in the Tampa Bay area totaling $6.6 billion.
Here are the businesses that collected the most from the first round of PPP loans:
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