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Emergency Money: Lessons From The Paycheck Protection Program, Susan C. Morse
Emergency Money: Lessons From The Paycheck Protection Program, Susan C. Morse
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, was huge. Between April 2020 and May 2021, it provided almost $800 billion to more than 11 million businesses—about a third of all U.S. businesses with 500 employees or fewer. The PPP was also flawed. Treasury and the Small Business Administration faced incomplete statutory instructions and a challenging tradeoff between speed and accuracy in distributing PPP funds.
These flaws make the PPP a realistic and valuable case study; the PPP reveals tools that can be applied to similar distributions of emergency funds. One tool is back-end adjustments, meaning that funds are first distributed and …