The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help small business weather the coronavirus pandemic while keeping their workers employed.
But government data suggests that hundreds of thousands of businesses across the country got access to funds without indicating how many jobs would be saved.
On Monday, the Trump Administration released data on the small businesses nationwide that received loans through the $669-billion Paycheck Protection Program. The loans distributed through the program were partially or fully forgivable depending on how much of the proceeds were used to keep employees on payroll.
The Small Business Administration has said the program has helped support about 51 million jobs. Yet, wrinkles in the data point to issues the federal government will face when keeping businesses accountable once it comes time to verify whether the loans they received will be forgiven.
A MarketWatch analysis of the government data found that just over 554,000 small businesses who got PPP funds reported retaining zero jobs. Nearly 50,000 of these business had received loans larger than $150,000, and more than 300 have received loans between $5 million and $10 million. – READ MORE
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