PROVIDENCE – Another 1,000 Rhode Island small businesses secured forgivable payroll loans in the last week, suggesting steady demand for the Paycheck Protection Program, according to the latest U.S. Small Business Administration information published on Tuesday.
While the number of newly approved recipients for Paycheck Protection Program loans in Rhode Island is on-par with prior seven-day periods, funding totals dropped, suggesting smaller loan sizes. Roughly $34.9 million more in loans was approved for Rhode Island between March 21 and March 28, compared to $50 million the prior week.
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In total, the second-round program has doled out $822.8 million for nearly 11,500 small businesses and other eligible entities in Rhode Island. Nationally, the program has approved $211.8 billion in loans for 3.6 million recipients since it relaunched in January.
Although originally set to expire on March 31, Congress has approved a two-month extension amid technical glitches that hampered the process. About $73 billion of the original $284 billion allocation remains, not including the $7 billion add-on included in the American Rescue Act Plan of 2021.
For the second week since the program reopened in January, Rhode Island-based Citizens Bank was no longer ranked among the top 15 lenders. National data shows that while larger lenders, with more than $10 billion in assets, have approved the most loans in terms of total funding, smaller banks with $10 billion or less in assets have processed a similar number of loans as their larger counterparts: $1.3 million compared to $1.4 million, respectively.
A majority of recipients still do not identify their race or ethnicity, making it difficult to tell whether a two-week restriction on eligibility intended to focus funding on smaller and minority-owned businesses made a difference. As of March 28, $163 billion in funding – more than three-quarters of total funds- went to recipients who did not identify their race. Among those who did, white loan recipients received $34.6 billion, while Black and Asian recipients were approved for $6.1 billion and $5.6 billion in funding, respectively.
Hispanic and Latino recipients, which are categorized as an ethnicity separate from race, received $6.4 billion in loans, compared to the $63.3 billion that went to non-Hispanic or Latino recipients. Again, a majority of funds – $142.2 billion – went to those who did not identify their ethnicity.
Demographic information by state was not available.
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Lavin@PBN.com.
