Taxpayers may never know how many jobs the $1 trillion PPP saved. The government didn’t keep count
Sarah D. Wire
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — A year after Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program, taxpayers don’t know how many jobs were saved by the nearly $1 trillion in forgivable loans issued to businesses during the pandemic.
And economists and government watchdog groups say they likely never will — because the government didn’t count.
The PPP was pitched as a way to save millions of jobs threatened during the COVID-19 recession. But the Small Business Administration under President Donald Trump — and now under President Joe Biden — hasn’t tracked figures on jobs that were saved, despite a legal requirement to do so.