As President Biden looks to pitch voters on the economic progress made on his watch ahead of the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris is on a mission to highlight how small businesses have fared under “Bidenomics.”

During a visit to Alfalfa salad restaurant on Santa Monica’s Main Street, Harris, along with Small Business Administration Chief Isabella Casillas Guzman and Representative Judy Chu

(D-Monterey Park)

praised the White House’s steps to strengthen the Community Advantage Program

,

an Obama-era loan program aimed at

provide capital to help

entrepreneurs who struggle to secure capital for their business.

Established in 2011, the Community Advantage Program was designed to increase access to loans specifically for low-income entrepreneurs and underserved business owners through primarily approved nonprofit lenders. The program

had been

extended until 2023 and expanded under the Biden

a government that raised borrowing limits from $250,000 to $350,000,

And

provided the opportunity for more financial institutions to become SBA lenders

.

“The Community Advantage Program is about providing support and access to capital to small businesses like this,”

said

Harris

said.

“We have so many small businesses doing great work, they’re part of the community, they’re leaders in the community, but they don’t necessarily have the access or the relationships with the big banks

,

or the big banks don’t necessarily see the value in what some of these small companies are doing.”

Alfalfa co-founders Andrew Arrospide, Daniel Londono and Daniel Sobsey opened their first location in 2019 in Hoboken, NJ. When they initially tried to secure the financing to bring their salad concept to market

W

Est

c

east

post-COVID

Banks and investors turned them down, the co-founders said. In 2021, they received a Community Advantage loan, as well as a loan from the American Rescue Plan Revitalization Fund for their expansion.

Biden uses ‘Bidenomics’ to reinforce his economic message before 2024

“It was very difficult to be able to open our second store 5,000 kilometers away, but that’s really because of the financing we received when no bank wanted to believe in us,” he says.

said

Londono

said.

“We are an example of how you can use these programs to build a truly great business.”

The company now has work

well more than

100 people and opens a new location in

Los Angeles’

Larchmont

Village district

this year.

Harris used the Santa Monica stop to pitch the Biden administration’s support for small businesses as part of the president’s overall campaign theme of strengthening the economy from the bottom up. Under the Community Advantage Program, Black business owners have received 23% of SBA Community Advantage funding compared

to with

4% of traditional SBA 7(a) loans, according to the SBA.

Spanish Latino

entrepreneurs have received 13% of community benefit loans in comparison

to with

10% of 7(a) loans. The program provided 661 loans totaling $104 million in budget costs

year

2022.

“The

P

resident and I feel very strongly about our approach to the economy. It’s called Binomics,”

said

Harris

said

. ‘It’s about saying it

,

‘

L

Also, we’re going to grow the economy from the middle, we’re going to grow the economy from the bottom up, not from the top down.'”

During the debt ceiling impasse in May, Republicans in the House of Representatives made cuts to government spending, which the Biden administration said would have cut the SBA and other small business aid programs by 22%. In the final debt ceiling package

That

Biden signed about $2 billion in unspent C

OVID

-19 Relief funds were recovered from the SBA, but the Community Advantage Program was left untouched.

Column: Bidenomics has been a boon to working-class voters. Why don’t they give him credit?