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After finally beginning to find their footing following the Great Recession of 2008 and having built up their state rainy day funds, states are now finding that it’s not just raining — they are facing a tsunami. With their two main sources of revenue, the income tax and sales tax, both seriously impacted by the historic levels of unemployment claims and shuttered businesses, states are just beginning to try to manage a budgetary storm that could have lasting impacts on their economies.

Last week, $6 million in funding was approved by the Michigan Strategic Fund for startup companies in the state. The $3 million Pre-Seed Fund III granted by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation will be administered by the Michigan State University Foundation and will support early-stage startups.

SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council has sent letters to congressional leadership outlining emergency actions needed to support tech- and innovation-driven businesses and recovery-focused programs to leverage American ingenuity for economic stimulus. The letters call for expanding SBA’s technical assistance to startups, leveraging EDA’s Build to Scale program, catalyzing new programs for equity investment and commercialization, and incorporating innovation into any infrastructure initiative.

In early April the Department of Labor announced a $42.5 million grant opportunity for the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant Program. The program is to support the development of new or expanding registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs) for youth, including quality pre-apprenticeship programs that lead to a RAP. The grant program supports the president’s executive order and the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s goals to promote pre-apprenticeships, to develop a strong youth apprenticeship pipeline, and to expand access to youth apprenticeships. Such programs provide both a pipeline of educated workers for industries, as well as greater opportunities for youth exploring career options.

SSTI recently took a look at some of the pre-apprenticeship programs in different states across the country and the impact some are having.

SBA released data on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) this week for all approved loan activity through April 13 and told banks Wednesday night that the program is nearly out of funds. The data show more than 1 million loans worth more than $247 million approved across all states and territories.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled a one-stop-shop of federal programs that can be used by rural communities impacted by COVID-19. The resource guide lists programs that can be used to provide immediate and long-term assistance in support of recovery efforts for rural residents, businesses and communities through:

While startups consistently create more jobs than older firms, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis took a look at the trends in startup’s share of jobs and found that startup employment share has been declining for more than a decade. The Fed story provides an overview of startup employment dynamics between 1994 and 2018.

A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) detailed findings of a review of federal efforts to prevent sexual harassment at universities that receive grants for STEM research. The GAO reviewed five agencies (the Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA, Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Science Foundation) that provide approximately 80 percent of federal STEM research grants and found that four of the five received few complaints under Title IX from individuals at universities.

Early-stage research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis examines the correlations between an area’s level of financial distress and its vulnerability to both the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fed’s initial findings indicate that areas with low levels of financial distress were infected with the coronavirus and reached the point of exponential growth in new infections before areas experiencing greater levels of financial distress, while the rate of new infections is higher in more distressed areas. It also finds that a greater share of workers from areas of higher distress work in industries that are more vulnerable to the economic shocks caused by the virus than workers from areas of lower financial distress.

In general, the effect of the pandemic on states’ budgets due to the wave of business, retail, and commerce shutdowns, as well as other reduced economic activity across the nation, is not entirely known, or too early to forecast; however, a number of states are beginning to experience the initial impacts of a substantial downturn. With several states having already enacted their 2020-21 budgets, special sessions are expected later this year to deal with declining revenues. Others ended sessions early without a new fiscal year spending plan in place.

Leveraging new data from the Census Bureau, the Kauffman Foundation recently released the second part of its new Indicators of Entrepreneurship series. This report focuses on the foundation’s New Employer Business indicators — a subset of the Early-State Entrepreneurship indicators provided in Kauffman’s first report of the series in September 2019 — meant to illuminate trends in the emergence of new businesses with employees and the time it takes for these companies to make their first payroll. The series replaces the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship series.

With the unprecedented devastation being caused by COVID-19, SSTI has assembled a resource page for organizations, small businesses, universities and others. The page contains links to federal, state, and other programs providing guidance on the both the latest stimulus package and other sources of aid.

We will also be updating and reorganizing this list, and we encourage you to reach out to us at contactus@ssti.org if you know of a program or resource that should be included here or have suggestions to improve usability.

Access the resource page here.