Census surveys could help small businesses post-pandemic
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Greg Cammerata, a Hempfield restaurant owner, is hopeful a new survey rolled out by the U.S. Census Bureau will bring additional aid to small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re not a corporate place,” said Cammerata, who owns IronRock Tap House. “We’re local people that did this restaurant. We don’t have the deep pockets that the big corporations do to be able to weather things.”
Dubbed the small business pulse survey, data collected will help policymakers understand changes in business operations, employment and hours, along with the availability of consumer goods.
Businesses across Pennsylvania have been shuttered since March when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all non-life-sustaining businesses to close to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, beer distributors, bakeries and auto parts stores, among select other businesses, are permitted to stay open.
Still, about 60% of small businesses experienced significant disruption, with only 15% still operating as usual, said Vera Krekanova, chief strategy and research officer for Allegheny Conference on Community Development, a nonprofit civic leadership organization.
And of businesses in the Pittsburgh region, about 60% are closed compared to the same time period last year, Krekanova said. Across the country, 50% of businesses are closed compared to last year, she said.
“There are small businesses in this space that are more exposed to the risks than others,” Krekanova said. “There are small businesses that are closed by the order, and there are small businesses that are open by the order. They have very different needs and dynamics and experiences to the pandemic.”
Understanding those different needs, Krekanova said, will help determine what support is needed from federal aid packages along with investments from the state and federal governments, similar to what the small business pulse survey is working to accomplish.
According to the census website, the 5-minute survey will ask business owners about location closings, changes in employment, disruptions in the supply chain, the use of federal assistance programs and expectations concerning future operations.
Several aid packages have been passed, both federally and by the state, to help small businesses amid the pandemic. Last month, the federal government passed an almost $350 billion package to provide loans to small businesses impacted by the economy during the pandemic, although the measure quickly ran out of funds.
Wolf passed a package last month that offered loans of up to $100,000 to for-profit businesses with 100 or fewer full-time employees.
Those measures, along with a $2.2 trillion economic relief plan to help Americans out of work, has already helped, Cammerata said.
“The way the federal government did the assistance was very helpful to us and probably played a large role in us being able to keep things going during the shutdown,” he said. “The whole census thing, if that can get additional information on how we’re doing and things we might need, that’s a good thing because those kind of programs can really help small businesses.”
IronRock Tap House, which opened in December, has been closed since mid-March.
With 99 employees, all but those salaried have been temporarily furloughed, Cammerata said.
“It’s kind of crazy how it works, but with the size of our restaurant we would actually lose money by doing takeout with the amount of business we would do,” he said.
While Sam Murray, owner of Salsa Sam’s in Irwin, said he has seen the community rally together to help small businesses, the surveys will help provide useful measures as the economy begins to open up based on Wolf’s three phase plan that will start May 8.
“Let’s ride it out let’s adapt and it’s going to be a different scenario,” he said. “I think if we fill out the survey, hopefully, I think we have a governor (who’s) doing everything correctly and I think we’ll be OK. I really do.”
The small business surveys will be sent to over 100,000 small businesses per week with between one and 499 employees. By the end of nine weeks, census officials are hoping to have received over 1 million responses. Data will be posted weekly starting in mid-May and will include responses from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Another survey, the household pulse survey, will be sent to homes to determine how people are experiencing stay-at-home orders, school closures, business curtailment and closures, and changes in the availability of consumer goods.