CHARLOTTE, N.C. - North Carolina has the third lowest percentage of businesses to receive funding from the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP, according to data collected by business.org.

What You Need To Know


  • According to a recent report, 10.5 percent of small businesses in North Carolina have received PPP loans

  • This is the third lowest percentage in the country

  • One business owner explains why she ultimately gave up on applying

This is, in part, due to some businesses not applying.

Priscilla Clark is an interior designer and also runs a vintage retail shop in Salisbury, N.C. She was excited when the government announced they would be helping small businesses through PPP loans and immediately printed out the forms.

“I was pretty excited because I thought, 'well this is going to be great, especially if it’s forgivable',” Clark said.

The loans would be completely forgivable if the business owner met certain criteria, but that was her first hurdle.

“If you didn’t have your 2019 hurdles filed, then you couldn’t do it,” Clark said. “I thought, ‘oh great, since they extended it to July I hadn't'.”

Then, there was another hurdle.

“I found out that I had to have three or more employees,” Clark said.

Clark runs her businesses by herself and is known as a sole proprietor, because she doesn’t have payroll employees.

Initially, there was confusion on whether sole proprietors could qualify for a PPP loan, but in April the U.S. Small Business Administration did include them and said they could get a loan based on their 2019 net profits.

By that point, Clark said she had enough.

“It was almost like they wanted to make it really difficult and confusing so you would just give up and go away,” Clark said.

She said she instead wanted to focus on getting her retail store back open and was worried even if she did get the loan it might not be forgiven.

“When you are already in the hole from lost revenue, then you don’t want to be stuck with the loan on top of it because it’s like the stone that will sink you to the bottom of the ocean,” Clark said.