Gottheimer announces paycheck protection program helped New Jersey’s fifth district retain more than 183,000 jobs
NEW JERSEY – U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) Tuesday announced that the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) helped retain more than 183,000 jobs in New Jersey’s Fifth District thus far, according to new data released this week from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
PPP was created by Congress in the bipartisan CARES Act, to provide aid directly to small businesses and organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic and to keep Americans employed.
“It’s great to see how these resources are helping retain so many Fifth District jobs and ensuring workers can provide for their families, and I will continue fighting for increased transparency into PPP loans and to claw more investment back to North Jersey,” Gottheimer said. “We have been in the eye of the COVID-19 storm and I know times are extremely tough for many businesses and their employees, but I remain committed to helping them access PPP resources and investment so we can retain even more jobs and ensure our communities and businesses can recover.”
“Congress needs to continue to further improve the program, and we must consider expanding PPP to allow our hardest hit businesses to apply for a second round of the forgivable loans, now that we’ve increased flexibility,” Gottheimer said.
So far, in the entire State of New Jersey, businesses have received more than 147,000 PPP loans, totaling more than $17.2 billion to businesses in the Garden State, Gottheimer said.
In New Jersey, small businesses are the backbones of each community, with 99.6% of all New Jersey businesses being small businesses and employing half of the state’s entire workforce, Gottheimer said.
