A little more than an hour after the New Jersey Economic Development Authority opened up applications for a total of $5 million in small business grants, more than 10,000 businesses had applied.
Over the next week, another 22,000 small businesses submitted applications for grants ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.
That’s more than 32,000 businesses, as of Thursday at 5 p.m., with the application window closing 9 a.m. Friday.
Only 1,250 to 2,000 grants will be awarded.
“We’re way, way, way oversubscribed,” Tim Sullivan, CEO of the Economic Development Authority, said Thursday evening. “We’re on the hunt for more money.”
The massive number of applications is evidence of the pain and suffering across the state, as entire industries have been ordered closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans are out of work, Sullivan said.
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Applications have come in from across the state, with some concentration in Bergen and Essex counties, Sullivan said.
These businesses are the smallest of the small. Only those with 10 full-time equivalent employees or fewer are eligible. And of the $5 million available, $3 million has been earmarked for businesses with five or fewer full-time equivalent employees.
“There’s a lot of two-, three- or four-employee enterprises out there that are really hard hit and have the least resources,” Sullivan said.
Though the grants are small, $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the number of employees, every dollar matters, said Michele Siekerka, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
“Every dollar coming in and every dollar not having to be spent means something,” she said.
In order to receive money, businesses must attest that they need this money to tide them over and won’t lay off any employees or will make every effort to rehire laid off or furloughed staff.
“If people get their application in and they’re No. 33,000, the odds aren’t good,” he said, adding the authority tried to create easily accessible programs that can get money out the door quickly and that can be expanded if more funding opens up.
“We knew that there’d be an over-demand with limited resources,” Siekerka said. “The key, though, was encouraging people to get int he queue with the hope there will be money coming.”
On Thursday, Sullivan announced the first tranche of grants had been awarded and wired. While the EDA is looking for more money to fund more grants, Sullivan said it’s unlikely they’ll be able to satisfy the backlog.
The $5 million in Small Business Emergency Assistance grants is a piece of the roughly $40 million aid package coming out of the EDA, which also includes loans and loan guarantees.
Sullivan said he expects demand for the loans — up to $100,000 for businesses with less than $5 million in revenue — will be “high. I don’t know if it’ll be 16 times more applications than we’re expecting.”
Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter@samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
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