Financial and Lifestyle Resources for Vermont

Loans and Grants for Now and Later Whether it’s starting curbside pickup at restaurants, pivoting manufacturing facilities to produce masks and other necessities for frontline workers, creating online ordering systems, or developing remote work infrastructures on the fly, one silver lining the pandemic has shown us is the innovative power of small business owners and entrepreneurs.   But the reality is that the small business sector is still in need of help—specifically financial help. If you are a business owner, here are the two major categories of finance that you can turn to, both during the COVID-19 crisis and after.

In the last month, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment due to the coronavirus. Here in Vermont, unemployment has jumped from 2.2 percent to an effective unemployment rate of over 20 percent, with more than 80,000 claims to date for unemployment insurance due to COVID-19. The economy is slowly restarting, as certain industries are reopening with social distancing parameters in place, but many Vermonters remain unemployed or worried about job security. If you or someone you know is out of work, here are eight things you can do to survive being laid off (or furloughed).

On April 15, some of you may have received your COVID-19 economic impact payment, otherwise known as your stimulus payment, from the federal government.* Instead of wondering, “When will I get my payment?” suddenly it’s, “What should I do with it?”