In the first ever episode of our Friday Mailbag Q&A series, we answer two interesting questions from our clients that we very pertinent to the economic and legal situation at hand.
Our first question came from Hilda, who works in education and childcare. She asked:
The stimulus package includes a significant expansion of unemployment benefits that includes providing an additional $600 per week. Is that on top of what state unemployment programs pay? For my business, that would mean most of my employees would be better off financially to go on unemployment. What can I do to retain them?
This is a key question as we’ve seen massive spikes in unemployment filings in the past few weeks, and many employers are struggling with exactly how to retain their remaining employees.
The second question comes from Alexis, who works in the legal services industry. Her question pertains to some of the provisions of the Paycheck Protection Program loans in the new CARES Act legislation. She writes:
One of the items in the Paycheck Protection Program that doesn't count toward payroll costs is "compensation of an individual employee in excess of an annual salary of $100,000, as prorated for the Covered Period." Does that mean the salary of all employees making over $100,000 will be disregarded in terms of calculating the payroll costs and loan amounts? Or is it that only a certain portion of those employees' salaries can be counted?
This is a tricky area since as of right now (April 3) the SBA has not released its final guidelines and regulations on the Paycheck Protection Program loans. We will definitely keep everyone updated on these loan programs if anything should change.
If you have any follow up questions or need assistance with the issues we discussed here, please give us a call at (407)649-7777. You can also submit your own Friday Mailbag questions for future episodes!
