$1-$explain the main issue of the article. $2-$ how this related to financial management and stragdy. $3-$ personal reflection and comments. $1|$ INTRODUCTION

The widespread closing of stores and businesses in the United States and around the world due to the coronavirus is

unprecedented. Stores, factories, and many other businesses have closed by policy mandate, downward demand shifts,

health concerns, or other factors. Many of these closures may be permanent because of the inability of owners to pay

ongoing expenses and survive the shutdown. The impact on small businesses around the world is likely to be severe.

The early effects of COVID$19$ on small business and entrepreneurs are not well known because of the lack of timely

business$$level data released by the government. This paper addresses this limitation by creating estimates of the

number of business owners from monthly Current Population Survey $($CPS$)$ microdata files. Using these timely data,

I examine how COVID$19$ impacted small business owners in mid$$April $2020$the first month to capture the widespread shelter$$in$$place restrictions in the United States. I then expand the analysis to include the next $2$ months as

many states that had restrictions started to relax those restrictions.

The CPS data are used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics $($BLS$)$ to track unemployment rates, and have been used in

previous research to study determinants of business ownership $($e$.$g$.,$ recently, Fairlie & Fossen, $2019$; Levine &

Rubenstein, $2017$; Wang, $2019).$ The CPS captures the current work activity of the business owner, and whether that

business owner is currently operating the business. Thus, the number of active business owners can be captured in the

data, but there is no way of telling whether these are temporary or permanent business closures. Many of the inactive

business owners, however, are likely to permanently close their businesses especially if the COVID$19$ induced

recession is prolonged. Even temporary closures caused by the pandemic are problematic because they reflect income

losses to business owners in those inactive months.

This study provides the first estimates of the early$$stage effects of COVID$19$ on small business owners from April

$2020$ CPS microdata$\mathrm{.}1$ I find that the number of working business owners plummeted from $15\mathrm{.}0$ million in February

$2020$ to $11\mathrm{.}7$ million in April $2020$ because of COVID$19$ mandates and health$$ and economic$$driven demand shifts. The

loss of $3\mathrm{.}3$ million active business owners $($or $22\%)$ was the largest drop on record. When conditioning on working

roughly $2$ or $4$ days$/$week$,$ the losses are even larger $(28\%$ and $31\%,$ respectively$).$ Total hours worked by all business

owners dropped by $29\%.$ Although incorporated businesses are more growth$$oriented and stable, they experienced a

drop of $20\%$ from February to April $2020.$

Patterns across gender, race, and immigrant status reveal alarming findings. African$$Americans experienced the

largest losses, eliminating $41\%$ of active business owners. Latinx also experienced major losses with $32\%$ of business

owners halting activity between February and April $2020.$ Immigrant business owners suffered a large drop of $36\%$ in

business activity, and female business owners suffered a disproportionate drop of $25\%.$

Building on these findings, this paper extends the analysis of COVID$19$ impacts into the second and third months

following widespread shelter$$in$$place restrictions across the country$$May and June $2020.$ The analysis answers the

question of whether there was further closing of small businesses or instead a partial rebound as small business owners

tried to reopen or partially reopen. The findings indicate that there was a partial rebound from April $2020$ numbers in

May and an additional rebound in June. The number of active business owners bounced back by $7$ percentage points

resulting in a $15\%$ drop in business activity from February to May $2020,$ and an additional $5$ percentage points rebound

in June resulting in an $8\%$ drop in business activity from February to June $2020.$

Patterns across gender, race, and immigrant status reveal that the disproportionate impacts from COVID$19$ lingered

into May and June. African$$Americans continued to experience the largest losses, eliminating $26\%$ of active business

owners in May and $19\%$ in June. Latinx also experienced major losses with $19\%$ of business owners inactive in May and

$10\%$ inactive in June. Immigrant business owners suffered a large drop in business activity of $25\%$ in May and $18\%$

in June.

Most major industries faced large drops in the number of active business owners in April with the only exception

being agriculture. Construction, restaurants, hotels, transportation, and personal$/$laundry services all faced large declines in the number of active business owners due to COVID$19.$ Simulations reveal that the concentrations of female,

black, Latinx, and Asian businesses in industries hit hard by the pandemic contributed to