The Federal Reserve on Friday widened the terms of its Main Street lending program for small businesses struggling during the coronavirus crisis, as the chances of another round of stimulus help for businesses appears increasingly unlikely in the next few weeks, the Washington Post reported. On Friday, the central bank lowered the threshold for loans that businesses can apply for from $250,000 to $100,000. The Fed also tweaked rules about the degree to which prior loan help from the federal government can be counted in a company’s application, with an eye toward trying to make the Main Street lending program more accessible to small and midsized businesses. The changes come as scores of American businesses are waiting for lawmakers to cut another stimulus deal, which could include an additional round of grants from the Paycheck Protection Program. Months of fraught negotiations between the White House and House Democrats have prompted some to ask what more the Federal Reserve could do to expand the reach of its emergency programs — particularly the Main Street lending facility. The Main Street lending program, which has the capacity to issue up to $600 billion in loans, has so far made almost 400 loans totaling $3.7 billion. The program has been widely criticized for having onerous loan terms, and there are ongoing debates about how much risk the program should take on given that losses are ultimately covered by taxpayer dollars. But even now, hundreds of billions of dollars set aside by lawmakers to cover losses from the Fed’s emergency facilities are going untapped.
