President Obama and the U.S. Small Business Administration announced October 21 a new plan to raise the maximum loan size for SBA-backed loans to small business. Specifically, President Obama called for:
- Increasing the size of SBA's 7(a) loan from $2 million to $5 million.
- Increasing the size of SBA's 504 loan from $2 million to $5 million for standard borrowers (supporting a total project of $12.5 million) and from $4 million to $5.5 million for manufacturers (supporting a total project of $13.75 million).
- Increasing the size of SBA's Microloan from $35,000 to $50,000.