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Working Paper

Basic Facts on the Coverage of the Paycheck Protection Program

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This paper applies loan-level information from Paycheck Protection Program loans to analyze the coverage of this extraordinary lending program. We show that loans went to a large share of small businesses across most industries in the US, especially to industries that were most negatively impacted by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. We geocode the loans and then identify that 2021 loans were more concentrated in low- and moderate-income communities, along with census tracts where minority residents are a majority of the population. The growth of nonemployer loans and fintech lending in the program were key components of the broadened reach of the program.

Topics
Small businesses
Lending and access to credit
Economic equity and inclusion
11.07.2023ISSN 2573-7953 WP 23-24DOI 10.26509/frbc-wp-202324
Keywords small business lending, credit access, fintech, discrimination
JEL Classification Codes G21, L5, R3, J71

Working Papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment on research in progress. They may not have been subject to the formal editorial review accorded official Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland publications. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.

Suggested Citation

Schweitzer, Mark E., and Angela Guo. 2023. “Basic Facts on the Coverage of the Paycheck Protection Program.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 23-24. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202324