Credit: (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
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New Jersey small businesses are in line for COVID-19 relief funds after Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation Thursday that allocates $25 million in grants for businesses with five or fewer employees.
The new law is the latest effort to help the state’s so-called microbusinesses make it through the ongoing health crisis following a series of shutdown orders and other public health measures that have been in place to curb new infections since the pandemic began last year.
During a bill-signing ceremony in Medford, Burlington County, Murphy called small businesses the “backbone of the economy of this state.”
Credit: Edwin J. Torres/ Governor s Office
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A massive, $11.5 billion plan to update and expand corporate tax breaks that Gov. Phil Murphy and legislative leaders say is needed to boost the state economy during the coronavirus pandemic is set to go before lawmakers for the first time Friday.
The legislation was just introduced earlier this week, but boosting economic development through tax breaks has been labeled a top priority by the governor and lawmakers, and it is expected to reach Murphy’s desk by early next week.
If enacted unchanged, the measure would allow for the awarding of up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks annually over a six-year period to incentivize things like small-business support, brownfield remediation, historic preservation and other economic development activities, according to the bill.