The Omaha Community Foundation recently announced a $2 million stimulus project, in partnership with Douglas County, aimed to help local restaurants and other food service businesses.

The Douglas County Food Services Stimulus funds are available to support small, locally owned businesses impacted by the pandemic.

“COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on our entire community,” said Douglas County Board Chair Mary Ann Borgeson. “Since the onset of the pandemic, the Douglas County Board has been working diligently to address the many issues our residents are facing, including the need for rent and utility assistance. We are grateful to continue our partnership with the Omaha Community Foundation to now distribute county funds to our local businesses.”

The stimulus money comes from Douglas County’s general fund and follows last year’s partnership with the Omaha Community Foundation that distributed $28 million in CARES Act funding to more than 300 local nonprofits. OCF will administer the program in partnership with the Nebraska Enterprise Fund. “We know how important small, locally-owned restaurants are to this community and our local economy. OCF is proud to partner with the county once again to get this funding quickly to the food service industry whose businesses have suffered due to the pandemic,” said OCF president and CEO Donna Kush. “Together with Douglas County and the Nebraska Enterprise Fund, we are committed to ensuring that those businesses who are eligible to apply have the assistance and support necessary to obtain these funds. As we start to think about recovery and rebuilding, getting stimulus funds into the hands of local businesses is a strong step forward.” A driving force behind the Biden administration’s push for more aid is the impending expiration of the extended jobless benefits in barely more than a month. More than 11 million people would lose benefits as a result, according to a report by the Century Foundation. Unlike the previous expiration of extended unemployment aid, which occurred on Dec. 26, the cut-off would be phased in between March 14 and April 11.

The job market won’t likely be close to fully recovered by then. Many economists expect a burst of growth and hiring later this year after vaccines are more widely administered, especially if Congress provides significantly more aid to households, small businesses and states and cities. But that isn’t likely for many months.

Once vaccinations become more widely distributed and administered in the coming months, economists expect growth and hiring to pick up, particularly if Congress provides significantly more financial aid to households, small businesses and states and cities.

“Additional fiscal stimulus and broader vaccine diffusion will eventually allow the labor market to heal,” Oxford Economics said in a note Thursday. “But as the January employment data showed, current conditions are still quite weak and declines in new jobless claims are likely to occur only gradually in the near term.”

Research issued Thursday by the JPMorgan Chase Institute found that supplemental unemployment payments, like the $600 a week that the federal government provided from April through July, helped maintain spending for the unemployed and didn’t appear to reduce their willingness to take jobs.

More than half the recipients who received the extra $600 returned to work before the benefit had expired, the study found. And the likelihood of recipients finding a job didn’t increase when the aid did expire. The report estimates that every dollar of additional benefits boosted spending by unemployed families by between 29 and 43 cents.

About 4 million people who are out of work have stopped searching for jobs and so aren’t even counted as unemployed. Powell said that if these people were counted among the officially jobless, the unemployment rate would be nearly 10%.

In his remarks to the Economic Club of New York, the Fed chair also highlighted the uneven nature of the layoffs in this pandemic. Job losses among the highest-earning one-quarter of Americans have been just 4%, while job losses among the poorest one-quarter have been “a staggering 17%,” Powell said.

Layoffs have also fallen disproportionately on Black workers. In December, 18% of people who sought unemployment aid were black, even though African Americans make up 13.5% of the workforce, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. By contrast, nearly 50% of the applicants were white, even though 77% of workers are white.

To be eligible for stimulus funds, businesses must be based in Douglas County and operate under one of the following NAICS Codes: 7223 – Special Food Services (caterers and food trucks); 7224 – Drinking Places; or 7225 – Restaurants and Other Eating Places. The business must also have been in operation since Jan. 2019 and currently be open to the public.

Applications are due by Wednesday, Feb. 17, at 11:59 p.m. Technical assistance is available through the Nebraska Enterprise Fund for any businesses that need help applying for funding.

Find additional eligibility and application details at omahafoundation.org/stimulus.