small businesses struggling to stay afloat amid outbreak
BALDWIN: As we are all forced to rely even more heavily on deliveries, Amazon is seeing a surge in online orders and it's planning to hire an additional 100,000 full and part-time workers to keep up with the rising demand. Amazon says it will also raise pay by $2 an hour. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is live in New Jersey. And I know you, Vanessa, have been talking to all these small business owners, how they're weathering this coronavirus storm. What are they telling you?</s>VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke, well, these small businesses are definitely not Amazon. They cannot weather this storm as much as these larger corporations. They're in dire straits, many of them looking at their bank accounts and having to look at their employees and make really tough decisions. We spoke to two small business owners just a short ways away from where we're standing here in New Jersey and found out how they're coping.</s>LARRY BIRNBAUM, OWNER, EPIC AND THE LIGHTBULB STORE: It's scary, it really is. I wouldn't want anybody to be in this position.</s>YURKEVICH (voice-over): Larry Birnbaum says he's losing $100,000 a month.</s>BIRNBAUM: I've never seen anything like this, where just everything grinds to a halt.</s>YURKEVICH: The factories in China where he gets his wholesale light bulbs are closed because of coronavirus. (on camera): What percentage of your business comes from China?</s>BIRNBAUM: 95 percent.</s>YURKEVICH (voice-over): President Trump announced low interest small business loans.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These low interest loans will help small businesses.</s>YURKEVICH: As part of the $50 billion economic aid package. (on camera): Would that be of interest to you?</s>BIRNBAUM: Possibly. But again, you just said the magic word, "interest." So, I'm paying interest on that loan and I'm paying interest on the credit line loan. And it just depletes everything.</s>YURKEVICH (voice-over): The National Retail Federation revised its initial assessment of the virus' impact. Saying it's, quote, expected to have a longer and larger impact on imports and major U.S. retail container ports than previously believed. And a global slowdown will affect small and mid-sized companies more acutely. Birnbaum worries about his nine employees.</s>BIRNBAUM: I will take out of my savings and pay them, you know, until the day that there's nothing else to go.</s>YURKEVICH: Two miles away is MDR Supply, another wholesale business with 35 employees. Down to their last reserves. (on camera): How long before this gets sent out?</s>RON MALKENSON, OWNER, MDR SUPPLY AND ASK WHOLESALE: 45 to 60 days is how long this product will last. Yes.</s>YURKEVICH: And then what happens after that?</s>MALKENSON: We hopefully get more product or we're in trouble.</s>YURKEVICH (voice-over): Ron Malkenson sells to construction companies and contractors. He's ordering as much additional product as he can before it's too late, to the tune of $70,000 and climbing.</s>MALKENSON: I'm ordering ahead of myself, having to stretch myself, and just order from as many different vendors as I can knowing that in the future, I may not be able to get goods for a period of time.</s>YURKEVICH: Malkenson is hopeful coronavirus won't mean an end to his business. Birnbaum is not as sure.</s>BIRNBAUM: There's no light like I said at the end of the tunnel.</s>YURKEVICH: These are just two of the thousands of small businesses that are suffering during this time, Brooke. But I want to just sort of leave on a good note here. We're at a food distribution company that is the middleman between food producers and grocery stores. They are seeing a very high demand here, up 50 percent, Brooke. But they said that they are going to be able to manage it. They want to put Americans at ease, there is no food shortage, and this, like Amazon, is one of those companies that is going to be hiring Americans during this very, very troubling time -- Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: A little bit of a silver lining to all of this. Vanessa Yurkevich, I appreciate you, and appreciate you pointing that out, thank you. The Mall of America says it's closing its doors in just a couple hours as the economic impact of this crisis seems to be snowballing. Uber, Lyft making changes to their policies as well. You'll hear from some drivers who say they can't afford not to work.