A new survey by the The National Federation of Independent Business shows how small businesses are spending their PPP loans. Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith joins the On The Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: And as I mentioned earlier, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was speaking at a live event today and talked about the need, potentially, for more stimulus. But what about the programs that are already in place? How are they working? The Paycheck Protection Program I'm thinking of in particular. Our own Jess Smith is with us from Washington to talk to us about it because there remains, seemingly, a decent amount of confusion about the rules around it. And we're hearing various surveys that a lot of the people who took advantage of it want that loan forgiveness. But how do they get it?

JESSICA SMITH: Exactly. And a new survey today did show just how small business owners are feeling about this program. The NFIB surveyed its members. And it found that 80% of them applied for a PPP loan. And of those people who applied, 90% have received the money. And most of them have started spending it. But there is some confusion, as you mentioned, over the program and how it's supposed to work and how these loans will be forgiven. 54% of the people surveyed said that they expect 100% of their loan to be forgiven. Almost 1/3 say they expect at least 75% to be forgiven. 72% of the businesses surveyed said that they found the terms and conditions of the PPP difficult to understand. Almost half said that spending the loan in this eight week period is difficult. And just about half said that returning to a pre-crisis headcount is difficult as well.

Now, the NFIB says that this situation is frustrating for some business owners. They want more clarity. Last week, the SBA and Treasury did release a forgiveness application for the PPP. And they said that further guidance would be coming. But we have not seen that yet. And Congress is working to potentially address some of the issues that business owners have raised about this program.

Senator Marco Rubio tweeted this morning that he was cautiously optimistic that there could be strong bipartisan support for a bill in the Senate today to extend the length of time that businesses have to spend those PPE-- PPP loans. And then the House next week is expected to pass or at least vote on a bipartisan bill that would give people more time and more flexibility. So we'll be watching to see what kind of changes could come to this program.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, definitely a lot of people calling for it. It would seem to make sense to at least extend the time. Jess, thank you very much.