Dec. 22, 2020 6:00 am ET
The $900 billion relief bill that Congress has hammered out may give the economy enough of a bridge to make it through to the spring, though it could at times seem rather rickety.
Throughout the summer and into the early fall, most observers expected that by now a significantly larger package would already be in place. In retrospect, with rising Covid-19 cases putting renewed pressure on the economy, it would have helped. But although the deal arrives too late to salvage the holiday shopping season or rescue small businesses that already closed their doors, it could make what is looking to be a difficult winter a little more bearable.
December has been the worst month yet for Samson Tours Inc., an Atlanta bus operator.
The company expects revenue to total just $30,000 in December, less than 10% of pre-pandemic levels and down from $118,000 in November. It has laid off or furloughed all but three of its 65 employees.
âThis month has had the least revenue of all of them since March,â said Chief Executive John Sambdman. âItâs getting worse every day.â
The companyâs most reliable clients have scaled back or temporarily stopped their use of buses. Public schools in Atlanta are expected to operate remotely until at least late January, military transportation has dwindled and corporate charters have all but evaporated.
Dec. 16, 2020 7:00 am ET
Thousands of businesses closed in the months after the coronavirus pandemic swept the country. In October, Duwaine Harris opened Stella’s, a Caribbean restaurant on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue.
The chef was collecting unemployment but, because of his frequent contact with his mother, the restaurant’s namesake, was wary of being called back into a crowded kitchen and endangering her health.
“I can’t go back and work for anybody,” Mr. Harris told his wife in the kitchen of their Bronx apartment.
A good deal from the landlord, kitchen equipment left behind by the previous tenant and money cobbled together from family members, credit cards, the couple’s savings and a loan from a Covid-19 relief program, put Stella’s in business.