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Ten Days Late and Billions of Dollars Short: The Employment Effects of Delays in Paycheck Protection Program Financing

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Abstract

Delay in the provision of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans due to insufficient initial funding under the CARES Act substantially and persistently reduced employment. Delayed loans increased job losses in May and persistently reduced recalls throughout the summer. The magnitude and heterogeneity of effects suggest significant barriers to obtaining external financing, particularly among small firms. Effects are inequitably distributed: larger among the self-employed, less well paid, less well educated and--importantly for the design of future programs--in very small firms. Our estimates imply the PPP saved millions of jobs but larger initial funding could have saved millions more, particularly if it had been directed toward the smallest firms. About half of the jobs lost to insufficient PPP funding are lost in firms with fewer than 10 employees, despite such firms accounting for less than 20 percent of employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Cynthia L. Doniger & Benjamin S. Kay, 2021. "Ten Days Late and Billions of Dollars Short: The Employment Effects of Delays in Paycheck Protection Program Financing," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-003, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2021-03
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2021.003
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    Cited by:

    1. Harasztosi, Péter & Maurin, Laurent & Pál, Rozália & Revoltella, Debora & van der Wielen, Wouter, 2022. "Firm-level policy support during the crisis: So far, so good?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 30-48.
    2. Charlene Marie Kalenkoski & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2022. "Impacts of COVID-19 on the self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 741-768, February.
    3. Claudia Sahm, 2021. "COVID-19 Is Transforming Economic Policy in the United States," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(4), pages 185-190, July.
    4. Crane, Leland D. & Decker, Ryan A. & Flaaen, Aaron & Hamins-Puertolas, Adrian & Kurz, Christopher, 2022. "Business exit during the COVID-19 pandemic: Non-traditional measures in historical context," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Meghana Ayyagari & Yuxi Cheng & Ariel Weinberger, 2022. "Surviving Pandemics: The Role of Spillovers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9891, CESifo.
    6. Marsh, W. Blake & Sharma, Padma, 2024. "Loan guarantees in a crisis: An antidote to a credit crunch?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Pavel Kapinos, 2021. "Paycheck Protection Program: County-Level Determinants and Effect on Unemployment," Working Papers 2105, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    8. Sriya Anbil & Mark A. Carlson & Mary-Frances Styczynski, 2021. "The Effect of the PPPLF on PPP Lending by Commercial Banks," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-030, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. André Kurmann & Étienne Lalé & Lien Ta, 2022. "Measuring Small Business Dynamics and Employment with Private-Sector Real-Time Data," CIRANO Working Papers 2022s-23, CIRANO.
    10. Granja, João & Makridis, Christos & Yannelis, Constantine & Zwick, Eric, 2022. "Did the paycheck protection program hit the target?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 725-761.
    11. Autor, David & Cho, David & Crane, Leland D. & Goldar, Mita & Lutz, Byron & Montes, Joshua & Peterman, William B. & Ratner, David & Villar, Daniel & Yildirmaz, Ahu, 2022. "An evaluation of the Paycheck Protection Program using administrative payroll microdata," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    12. Gustavo Joaquim, 2021. "Allocation and Employment Effect of the Paycheck Protection Program," Current Policy Perspectives 93541, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Doniger, Cynthia L. & Kay, Benjamin, 2023. "Long-lived employment effects of delays in emergency financing for small businesses," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 78-91.
    14. Kapinos, Pavel, 2021. "Did the Paycheck Protection Program have negative side effects on small-business activity?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    15. Daniel G. Neely & Gregory D. Saxton & Paul A. Wong, 2023. "Nonprofit Organizations’ Financial Obligations and the Paycheck Protection Program," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4353-4361, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Paycheck Protection Program; CARES Act; countercyclical fiscal policy; Covid-19; Kurzarbeit; Income Support; Small Business Lending; Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs); Financial Frictions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • H81 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

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