PPP loans in region approach $4 billion
Employers in the tri-county region received almost $4 billion in forgivable loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, aimed at preserving more than 450,000 jobs in the region, according to a Business Times analysis of U.S. Small Business Administration data.
The PPP loan application period ended on May 31, 2021, for both the First and Second Draw loan programs. The SBA has until June 30 to process those applications.
The First Round is the round that started in 2020, but businesses that had not applied for a loan in 2020 could apply for a first round in 2021. The Second Round started in January, and it was specifically for businesses that had already applied for a PPP loan, had received it and needed additional help from the program.
The Business Times last looked at PPP funding on a regional level in December, the region had received $2.87 billion in funding. According to data available at the time, the funding helped save almost 300,000 jobs in the area.
The newest set of data provides a more complete picture of how the program impacted the region. The top two recipients from the region, Taft Electric Company in Ventura and Saalex Solutions in Camarillo, were also the top recipients as of December, but Camarillo-based Zume received an $8.6 million PPP loan on Feb. 1, 2021, shooting it to third place.
The Central Coast received $1.2 billion in PPP funding in 2021, which helped preserve about 160,000 jobs in the region. More than a third of total regional funding, $1.43 billion, went to businesses that received multiple rounds of PPP funding, including the Pacific Coast Business Times, which received $259,934 in funding between two rounds: an initial loan approved on May 1, 2020, for $136,757, and a second round of funding, approved Jan. 25, 2021, for $123,177.
More than $1 billion of the loans dispersed in the Central Coast have also already been forgiven. Of that total, about two-thirds of the amount forgiven was lent to smaller businesses who asked for loans smaller than $150,000.
Nationally, the SBA has forgiven about $279.4 billion of the money it lent out through PPP funding, or about half of the money it lent in 2020. The SBA has said it refused $1 billion of the loan forgiveness applications it has received, while $81.5 billion in loans are under review for forgiveness and $159.1 billion went to businesses that have not yet applied for PPP loan forgiveness.
