Arkansas businesses received $4.9 Billion in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, a COVID relief program on January 5th, 2023. It will benefit the small businesses in Arkansas, and help the employees of all of them.

After COVID subsided, the COVID relief program PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loaned $4.9 Billion dollars to any business in Arkansas with le

ss than 500 workers to cover paychecks for the employees. This act helped many employees and staff members of these businesses, and allowed the businesses to continue work. Jennifer Merriott  said 

“Considering the government mandated the shutdowns, it showed good faith for them to help the most heavily impacted businesses.” 

Multiple forms of fraud have been reported, including a man buying an Alpaca farm. The House Panel says relaxed screening helped people facilitate loan fraud. Fraudulent claims such as these can prevent people who need the money from receiving support. “It’s not surprising. Wherever you have opportunity, vultures will gather,” said Will Merriott “Just another government system that’s easy to exploit.”

97%  of all PPP loans have already been forgiven. The businesses that benefited the most from this action are Healthcare and Social assistance employers. When divided up, the money that the average resident gets from the loan is $1,651. “I think it might help small businesses a lot.” said Xander Merriott.

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