Business

Why Not-So-Small Businesses Got In On Small-Business Rescue

  • Federal rules redefined ‘small’ for firms in 300 industries
  • Larger companies crowded out little ones, advocates say

Closed businesses in downtown Cartersville, Georgia on April 22.

Photographer: Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg
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While some mom-and-pop businesses waited in vain for their share of a federal bailout, a 700-person biotech firm that recently paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to the Justice Department was approved for one.

A steel fabricator with 795 employees was too. So was a telecommunications company that has 1,270 workers, 700 of them based in the U.S.