PPP Funds Almost Exhausted

An article in the New York Times today reported that funding for the Paycheck Protection Program could be exhausted within the next day or two. "As of Wednesday evening, more than 1.4 million loans had been approved at a value of more than $315 billion, according to the Small Business Administration." Congress originally allocated $350 Billion to this program, although there are serious talks about infusing an additional $250 Billion. There are approximately 30 million small businesses in the U.S.

UPDATE: The SBA announced that as of 9 p.m. Wednesday, there were more than 1.5 million small-business loan applications approved totaling more than $324 billion with more than 4,900 lending institutions participating in the program.

Additionally, Republicans and Democrats are working on more funding, but those efforts seem to be stalled over disputes about Democrat provisions that call for at least $60 billion in small-business lending for women, minority and veteran-owned businesses in underserved urban, rural and tribal areas, $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for state governments.