Little of the Paycheck Protection Program’s $800 Billion Protected Paychecks

Feb 1, 2022
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Most notably, they gutted the requirement that debtors who wished their loans forgiven keep their prepandemic head counts. They usually decreased the proportion of the mortgage that debtors in search of forgiveness needed to spend on payroll, to 60 p.c from 75 p.c.

That allowed enterprise homeowners to spend extra of the cash on lease, utilities and different bills. (A few of these funds, in flip, propped up different industries: An evaluation final 12 months discovered that Paycheck Safety Program cash decreased industrial mortgage delinquencies.)

Out of the roughly $510 billion this system lent in 2020, a most of $175 billion — about 34 p.c — went to paying employees who would have misplaced their jobs, Dr. Autor’s group discovered. Cash that didn’t particularly protect jobs was successfully a windfall for enterprise homeowners — on the entire a rich group.

“This program was extremely, extremely regressive,” Dr. Autor stated, utilizing the financial time period for insurance policies that favor the richest.

Lawmakers in each events have backed the Paycheck Safety Program — it was created in the course of the Trump administration and distributed an extra spherical of funding after President Biden took workplace — partly as a result of each congressional district is stuffed with entrepreneurs like Ms. Kelly.

Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, speaks glowingly of Island Grove Wine, a vineyard and wedding ceremony website that the pandemic became “a cash pit,” within the phrases of its proprietor. Consultant Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, a Democrat, praised this system for giving native mainstays just like the Aurora Theater, an arts venue, “the sources they should get again on their toes.”

And Consultant Steve Chabot, an Ohio Republican, introduced Dr. Wealthy Coleman, proprietor of 4 Paws Animal Hospital, to a Home listening to. Dr. Coleman testified that this system had allowed his 34 staff “to go house each night time figuring out that they might pay their lease, feed their household and, extra importantly, feed the large quantities of pets that they personal.”

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Supply- nytimes