SALEM, Ore. — As COVID-19 cases surge across Oregon a slew of new restrictions are being implemented in the state, as part of a two-week freeze that begins Wednesday in and effort to halt social activities and slow the spread in transmission. Restaurants are once again being limited to take-out only and some businesses must lock their doors. This time, the lack of a federal economic backstop are leaving owners and employees apprehensive about their ability to survive the financial impact.
“We were already hearing from members they were concerned about what another shutdown would do to their chances of staying open,” said Jason Brandt, the president & CEO for the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association. “This latest round of regulations focused on restaurants will trigger an unknown amount of permanent closures impacting the livelihoods of thousands of Oregon families.”
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic around 200 restaurants, or 2 percent, have permanently closed. Brandt said that number is likely significantly higher.
A month into Oregon’s March shutdown, an estimated 81 percent of Oregon restaurant workers had been laid off or furloughed — impacting 127,000 employees, according to a national survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association.
But this time around federal funds have dwindled and the pool of significant financial resources are arid.
“This is incredibly different than the last go around because we had the federal government to pass relief packages to prop up businesses,” Brandt said.
The Paycheck Protection Program, a key piece of the coronavirus relief legislation Congress approved in March, handed out more than $650 billion in loans and increased the survivability of businesses.
The program stopped taking applications in August.
A separate federal relief program that paid unemployed Americans an extra $600 per week has lapsed as well.
“Congress needs to act to help us,” Gov. Kate Brown said.
For weeks Brown has called on Congress to pass another COVID-19 relief package, which she said should immediately reinstitute the $600 supplemental benefit for unemployment and enhance federal employment compensation.
“We know very, very, clearly that the band-aid has been ripped off and that our historically underserved communities – our communities of color, our low income communities, our rural communities — have been disproportionately impacted,” Brown said.
Oregon’s statewide two-week freeze begins Nov. 18 but for some counties, including Multnomah — Oregon’s most populous county and home to Portland — the freeze is expected to last longer.
