Dun & Bradstreet President Stephen Daffron joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down the impact the paycheck protection program and how the plan should be adjusted.

Video Transcript

- And lawmakers looking to hammer out the final details of the deal. Now this package is expected to include a revival of the Paycheck Protection Program that of course helps small businesses here during the first round of the relief bill. So, for more on that, we want to bring in Stephen Daffron. He is the president of Dun and Bradstreet. And Steven, great to have you on the show. Your firm is out with a new report here examining how effective that federal aid has been in keeping small businesses afloat so far this year. What did you find?

STEPHEN DAFFRON: Well, first thing we found is it was worthwhile. That the effect of the PPP program was in fact to keep people in jobs more and to keep businesses afloat more. It was a stopgap, but it worked.

- Speaking about the fact that it was a stopgap, but it worked, are there any changes that you think are necessary that we need to make sure are included in this round? Because I think the question is whether or not we have enough detail because there was so much confusion surrounding that first round of PPP, that constantly changing guidance from the Treasury and also from the Small Business Administration. Is there any hesitance, do you think, from small business owners to take on additional aid at this point?

STEPHEN DAFFRON: Well, I wouldn't think so because what it shows, what the data shows, and we track this for both public and private companies across the country, and across the world. What we show is that the ones who took the PPP loans have a lower need for post-assistance than those who didn't. The ones who didn't take it are having higher delinquency rates than those who did. And delinquency rates is a great leading indicator to see whether this worked or not. And it seems to have. And especially for those smaller businesses, it seems to be that the most jobs that were retained were in the smaller businesses, and the jobs that weren't retained were in some of the larger businesses.

And the ones who are having the most problems after the PPP expires are those who are in the larger size. Now this time, I'm hoping that there'll be more data driven decisions on how the money is allocated. Both because I think we can do a better job of actually getting returns on keeping jobs in place and keeping businesses afloat. I'm seeing disturbing indicators from the data because one of things we look for-- we look at businesses across all businesses the way you would look at consumers. And businesses that don't pay their bills, businesses that have delinquency rates that go up are problematic. And that's what we're seeing now, which is why the need for this new program becomes all the more pressing.

- You're talking about the need for this new program-- it's interesting because we had Karen Mills on the show last week, I believe. She's a former head of the Small Business Administration. And she was warning that-- she was saying actually up to 30% of small businesses-- back in the spring she was saying 20% to 30%, now she's saying that the high end of that range are at risk of closing permanently. I'm just curious if that lines up with the data that you're looking at in the small businesses here that you have been talking to.

STEPHEN DAFFRON: It does, it does, and again my leading indicator that I look at even before they close is they stop paying their bills. And the delinquency rates that I'm seeing across all the SI-- well 79 out of the 84 SIT codes that we're tracking, 79 out of the 84 have had the delinquency rates go up. The ones that are most important-- services, retail, transportation, and construction are trending up dramatically. And what that means is that not only are they not paying their bills, but as they stop paying their bills, they stop doing business. And there's a-- you might say a degree of going out of business. But you can see it first when they stop paying, two, when people stop doing business with them. If you see less foot traffic, you see less internet digital traffic, and then you see the business fail. And when it fails for all those three reasons, it tends not to come back.

- All right, Stephen Daffron, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. President of Dun and Bradstreet, have a great weekend.

STEPHEN DAFFRON: It was my pleasure.