REPORT: Biden Restaurant COVID Relief Prioritizes Non-White Male Business Owners First
Restaurants and businesses owned by white males will be last in line for federal aid under the Biden Administration’s Restaurants and Revitalization Fund (RRF), with priority going to females and minorities first.
Included in the Biden-Harris Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is opening their applications for businesses (bars, restaurants, venues) to apply for federal aid to help alleviate the loss of revenue from the COVID-19 shutdowns.
The exorbitant plan allows businesses to apply for up to $10 million total and up to $5 million per location. Businesses are not required to pay back the funds as long as the money is spent by March 2023.
Unfortunately, if you happen to be a white male business owner, you will not be eligible for the “priority period” processing and funding.
The priority is partially based on gender, race, and if the owners are considered “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.”
Screenshot from sba.gov website.
Under the guidelines for Biden’s RRF, the Small Business Association is giving priority processing and funding to “small business owned by women, veterans, or socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.”
For eligibility, the business must be “at least 51 percent owned by one or more individuals who are women, veterans, or socially and economically disadvantaged and if the management and daily business operations of the applicant are controlled by one or more women, veterans, or socially and economically disadvantaged individual.”
The “Biden-Harris” Administration is defining businesses owned by “socially and economically disadvantaged” as:
Native American (including Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian)
Asian Pacific American
Black American
Subcontinent Asian American
Hispanic American
In addition to those standard minority groups, the Biden-Harris Admninistration bizarrely added being part of an “economically disadvantaged Indian tribe” or “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias” as other forms of being disadvantaged.
The RRF rules also state that the net worth of the individual business owners will also be taken into account to determine eligibility.
This new policy is in stark contrast to the former Trump Administration which applied aid solely based on the amount of revenue lost. Race and gender were not part of the requirements for aid.
Do you think gender and race should play a role in who gets priority eligibility for restaurant aid? Should it be determined solely by lost revenue and financial need? Comment your thoughts below!