The unexpected outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA in March 2020 hit small businesses across the country, triggering mass job losses and closures. Beyond the severity of the pandemic itself, policy responses adopted by state governments produced yet another set of changes in small business operating environments. Using data from the Small Business Pulse Survey and the Current Population Survey, this paper provides evidence of how small businesses experienced these policy changes during the first few months of the pandemic in terms of perceptions of the pandemic, adjustments in employment levels, and employee schedule, as well as changes in overall self-employment activity. Policy variables include the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and a State Orders database. We find that the PPP per firm on the state level has a strong positive impact on lessening firms’ negative perceptions, alleviating the need to downsize, and recovering self-employment activities. The lifting of shelter-in-place, non-essential business closures, and restaurant dine-in services restrictions all helped, though their impact was more modest than PPP’s. The magnitudes of both effects vary by industry and owner groups.

2020 年 3 月，美国意外爆发的新型冠状病毒肺炎 (COVID-19) 疫情冲击了全国各地的小型企业，引发大规模失业和倒闭。除了疫情本身的严重性之外，州政府采取的政策应对措施还给小企业经营环境带来了另一组变化。本文利用小企业脉搏调查和当前人口调查的数据，从对大流行的看法、就业水平的调整和员工排班等方面，提供了小企业在大流行的头几个月中如何经历这些政策变化的证据，以及整体自营职业活动的变化。政策变量包括薪资保护计划（PPP）和国家订单数据库。我们发现，州一级每家公司的购买力平价对减少公司的负面看法、减轻裁员的需要和恢复自营职业活动具有强烈的积极影响。就地避难、非必要企业关闭和餐厅就餐服务限制的取消都起到了一定作用，尽管它们的影响比 PPP 的影响要小。这两种影响的程度因行业和所有者群体而异。