For richer and poorer, Uncle Sam's coronavirus response widened the gulf.

Experts say there are strong reasons to believe less-well-to-do business owners have suffered disproportionately and gotten less help from the government. https://nbcnews.to/2PnoPpN  (1/6) #NBCNewsThreads

For two decades, Jeff Esaw of Stratford, Connecticut, has been serving up Southern barbecue. But economic trends haven't been kind.

He estimates he lost 80 percent or more of his overall revenue from his catering business due to COVID-19. (2/6)

Esaw wasn't able to get a PPP loan when he applied through the local branch of a national bank, he said. He also couldn't get unemployment insurance, and he fell thousands of dollars behind on his mortgage before negotiating for partial forbearance. (3/6)

However, Peter Brant's White Birch Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut, had no problem getting a taxpayer-backed windfall. The sprawling estate houses one of his family's mansions and a thoroughbred facility for his polo horses. https://nbcnews.to/2PnoPpN  (4/6)

Small Business Administration records show the horse farm received a loan of $350,000 to $1 million to support wages for a staff of about five dozen people.

Later, White Birch Farm borrowed $25.7 million from JPMorgan Chase to buy a $47 million estate in Palm Beach, FL. (5/6)

The government's treatment of 2 businessmen — one Black, one white — reflects the larger story of its pandemic response. Trillions of dollars have been pumped into America's wealthiest, reinforcing and widening disparities between races and economic classes, economists say. (6/6)