SBA Offers Transparency on Who Received PPP Loans
By Terry Troy
In the interest of ensuring both transparency and protection for small businesses, the U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Treasury earlier this month agreed with the U.S. Senate’s Small Business Committee to make additional data available on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The SBA announced that it will disclose the business names, addresses industry codes, zip codes, demographic data, non-profit information, and jobs supported in loan amounts ranging from $150,000 to $10 million. Loans below $150,000 will be released, aggregated by zip code, industry, business type and other demographic categories.
“We are striking the appropriate balance of providing public transparency, while protecting the payroll and personal income information of small businesses, sole proprietors, and independent contractors,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin in a prepared statement.
According to the SBA, Ohio lending under PPP amounts to 132,731 loans, as of mid-June, with total net dollars totaling over $18 billion. Nationally, the loan count is more than 4.5 million with net dollars totaling more than $512.27 billion. As of mid-month, total funds still available amounted to approximately $129.75 billion, with the average loan size being $112,000.
A further examination of the data reveals that loans of $50,000 or under made up more than 65% of loans awarded, but only 10.7% of total net dollars. Loans of $50,000 to $100,000 made up more than 14.4% of loans, but only 9.1% of dollars.
At the upper end, loans made between $350,000 and $1 million made up only 4.3% of loans but almost $22% of dollars, while loans of $5 million and above amounted to only 0.1% of loans, but 6.6% of dollars.
But there is still help available.
Last week, Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted announced the creation of three programs to help small- to medium-sized business in the state, which will be administered by the Ohio Developmental Services Agency.
The first is a PPE Retooling and Reshoring Grant program that offers grant funds to small- and mid-sized manufacturers that want to retool or construct facilities in Ohio to manufacture PPE. This grant program will be funded with $20 million and eligible manufacturers may be awarded up to $500,000 per facility. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (nfib.com), up to 20% of available funds may be reserved for manufacturers with fewer than 25 employees as well as registered nonprofits.
A second program will provide grants to businesses owned and operated by minorities and women, offering funds of $10,000 per business on a first come, first served basis. Another loan program is designed to offer small businesses in the 32-county Appalachian region of Ohio, offering loans of up to $500,000 for eligible businesses.
Ohio small businesses can learn more about these and other resources available through the Office of Small Business Relief and Development at Coronavirus.Ohio.Gov/BusinessHelp.