Even as the U.S. economy continues to heal from the devastating impact of COVID-19, many small businesses are grappling with another serious financial challenge: repaying the federal pandemic relief loans they got to help them survive the crisis.
Nearly 4 million small business owners who received such “disaster” loans are now required to pay them back — a strain for many employers amid the ongoing scourge of inflation, growing risk of recession and risk that COVID-19 will flare up as winter approaches.
“These were loans made from the Federal Disaster Program and they have 30-year terms and a low interest rate which made them attractive to many small businesses,” said Ruth Simon, a senior special writer at the Wall Street Journal, in an interview with CBS Mornings.
According to the paper, the first payments on 1.2 million disaster loans are due this…
