The St. Louis Fed dropped its PPP report

US taxpayers paid $3–$4 for every $1 in wages and benefits received by workers in jobs saved by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), per a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

💰🏛 Background… Like your quarantine relationship, the PPP was first enacted in April 2020 as part of the bipartisan $2.2 trillion CARES Act. Congress passed new measures in the following weeks and months adding more funding to the program.

• All told, nearly $800 billion was loaned out to businesses with fewer than 500 employees before the PPP’s operations wound down this year.
• The loans came with a condition that they would be forgiven completely if borrowers maintained certain employment targets and certified the money was spent within a specified period on payroll, utilities, or rent/ mortgage payments. More than 90% of the loans had been forgiven as of late last month, according to a recent government report.

📝 Zoom in: The Fed study reports that the PPP spent between $169,000 and $258,000 per job saved over its first 14 months of existence. For context, the average small business employee earned ~$58,200 in wages and benefits over that same period.