It is now official, the Paycheck Protection Program has exhausted its entire $349 bn. The announcement came yesterday that all the money in the program has been “approved”. However, that announcement left small business owners in confusion, as data shows very little money has arrived. According to COVID Loan Tracker, less than 6% of small business owners say that they have actually received money.
COVID Loan Tracker was started by small business owners Duncan and Rita MacDonald-Korth to help their fellow small business owners understand when PPP and EIDL advance money starts flowing. The site works by crowdsourcing knowledge on applications and loan disbursements. Our goal is to help the small business community and empower journalists with the data they need to keep the government accountable.
PLEASE HELP SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS BY FILLING OUT THE FORM
Small business owners are having trouble reconciling the difference they see between the SBA’s numbers and the lack of money they see in their accounts. The SBA has done little to clear up the confusion, as they have not made actual loan disbursement data public. “Where is the money? That is what all small business owners are asking us. We are getting thousands of those emails a day.”, says Rita MacDonald-Korth, co-founder of COVID Loan Tracker.