The U.S. forgave $757 billion in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, with most of those benefits going to the wealthy.
After the President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan, critics of the decision are pointing to other recent examples of the government forgiving debt —many with far larger amounts of money than at stake than in the student loan plan.
In particular, the Paycheck Protection Program has so far forgiven $757 billion in loans to private businesses, according to government databases — nearly double what the Biden administration’s student-loan forgiveness would have cost.
Mr. Biden made that comparison in a press conference on Friday afternoon, pointing out that many members of Congress received PPP loans that were forgiven.
«I was trying to provide students with $10,000 to $20,000 in relief,» Biden said. «The average amount forgiven in the PPP program was $70,000.»
He added, «The hypocrisy is stunning.»How much in PPP loans was forgiven?
The government, through the Small Business Administration, gave out nearly $790 billion in PPP loans between March 2020 and May 2021, when the program ended, public records show. Of that amount, $757 billion has been forgiven.
The recipients include two dozen members of Congress who received between $79,000 and $3.4 million apiece for businesses, according to reporting at the time.
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While the PPP did preserve up to 3 million jobs for one year, according to one study from economists at MIT and the Federal Reserve, the major beneficiaries of that money were business owners and shareholders —not workers.
Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the PPP’s benefits «did not go to paychecks, however, but instead accrued to business owners and shareholders,» the study found, estimating that «about three-quarters of PPP benefits accrued to the top quintile of household income.
