When the coronavirus pandemic overtook the United States in the spring of 2020, it paused huge swaths of the economy and shuttered countless small businesses. In response, the federal government developed the Paycheck Protection Program, one of the largest financial bailouts since the Great Depression.
Over the course of a year, the program injected more than $770 billion into businesses across the nation. Yet like so many resources in America, those funds did not reach many of the people who needed them most.
We analyzed more than 5 million PPP loans and found widespread disparities in how the money was distributed. Indeed, in the vast majority of metro areas with a population of 1 million or more, we found that the rate of lending to majority-White areas was higher than the rates for any majority-Latinx, Black or Asian areas. We also uncovered troubling patterns among several prominent lending institutions.
Our analysis, the first-ever look at how PPP loans were distributed at the census tract level, stems from an enormous dataset we acquired after several news organizations sued the Small Business Administration in May 2020.
Today, as the pandemic abates and Americans reemerge from their homes, the economy that awaits them looks different than it did before: Separated further into haves and have-nots, it is cleaved along generations-old racial fault lines that stubbornly persist.
The data contains countless story opportunities. Together with Big Local News, a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative, we’re sharing it with local reporters across the country. To access it immediately, sign up for our Reporting Networks below.
This story was produced with the support of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships and Big Local News at Stanford University.
Localizations
- The Salt Lake Tribune: An Ogden single mom lost half her work hours during COVID-19. Then, payday lenders nearly drove her to despair
- Reveal: The teen reporter, the evictions and the church
- Capitol Public Radio: The Paycheck Protection Program was meant to help places of worship in need. In Sacramento, it mostly helped ones in White neighborhoods
- The NEWcomer: Green Bay Latino-owned businesses were left behind by PPP funds. It’s nothing new
- KVCR: Flawed federal relief program left out Inland businesses in minority neighborhoods
- The NEWcomer: Protecting who?: Bulk of Green Bay PPP loans concentrated in suburbs
- San Francisco Chronicle: How PPP loans benefited the Bay Area’s wealthy, White areas more than those with large Black and Latino communities
- Michigan Radio: White neighborhoods received PPP loans at twice the rate of Latino communities in metro Detroit
- KPBS: Businesses in San Diego’s majority White communities received by far the most PPP loans
- The NEWcomer: Protecting who? Paycheck Protection Program does little for Green Bay’s Black business owners
- The NEWcomer: ‘Took the legs out from under me’: A Green Bay barber’s struggle to find pandemic assistance takes its toll
- KQED: Unequal distribution: How businesses in East Oakland and other communities of color missed out on PPP loans
- The Bay KQED: PPP loans were meant to help save businesses, but many in communities of color didn’t get them
- KVCR: Flawed federal relief program left out Inland businesses in minority neighborhoods