Hi, I'm Dan Premat, and welcome to Axios Recap's special series on America's business comeback.

Today is Wednesday, May 26th. Amazon is buying up MGM studios. Gas prices are down from a week ago,

and we're focused on how the U.S. government worked to save small businesses.

As the U.S. economy was staring into that pandemic abyss in March 2020,

Congress passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill called the CARES Act.

Within it was something called the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP,

which was aimed directly at helping small businesses keep their

workers on payrolls. It was stood up and launched in just a matter of weeks by the U.S. Small

Business Administration, but it relied on private banks, began small, to work with small businesses

on getting their applications processed in exchange for a small fee from the SBA.

Now, there were lots of criticisms of PPP,

initial tech glitches, banks giving priority to existing customers, concerns that minority-owned

businesses were being left behind, and the fact that the initial program very quickly ran out

of money. But in retrospect, it was one of the most important bipartisan accomplishments of 2020

because it legitimately did save millions of small business jobs and a lot of small businesses

themselves.

But don't let me tell you, here are some small business owners we've interviewed for this series

talking about what PPP meant to them.

First, Dana Frank, CEO of First Avenue in Minneapolis,

who you'll hear more from later on in the show. What wasn't the impact? I mean, it saved jobs.

It saved the business in a lot of regards. It saved venues from being decrepit. It was absolutely

life-sustaining. Here's Frank Olivier from Pat's Stakes in Philadelphia.

...