The pandemic relief records archive
Who got paid. What the rules rewarded. What happened next. Explore U.S. pandemic relief through original documents, company profiles, and data you can use.
New here? Start with a guide to the archive
FROM THE ARCHIVE / 2020–2022Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress · 2020–21
Featured interactive
Explore the storefronts, relief programs, and companies that shaped the pandemic economy.
Explore the storyPut the archive to work
01 / Follow the money
91,448 matched businesses, including probable and weak matches; 77,155 high-confidence matches.
Explore program overlap02 / Follow the cases
763 prison sentences from 1,133 case records, grouped by length.
Explore sentencing outcomes03 / Read the fine print
Each measure has its own scope and date. They are not added together.
Compare the measuresInside the collection
Read a case. Look up a company. Download a dataset. Choose the material your question needs.
Indictments, complaints, pleas, orders, and exhibits from federal dockets.
Agency reports, inspector-general audits, congressional records, and company material.
Published tables and preserved federal releases, with definitions and source dates.
Lenders, processors, program officials, and oversight bodies, sourced claim by claim.
Compare lenders, states, and federal districts using the published datasets.
Relief statutes and the legal provisions cited across the archive.
Explore by relief program
Loans, grants, tax credits, and unemployment benefits. Start with a program, then follow its records.
Forgivable loans
The loans, the lenders, and the fees paid to move them. Explore how PPP worked, compare lenders, and follow the loan data.
Disaster loans
The SBA disaster-loan program for businesses affected by the pandemic. Start with the program guide, then explore borrower suspensions and cross-program overlap.
Tax credits
A payroll tax credit with eligibility disputes, claim deadlines, and an enforcement record. Read the program guide and the documents behind the cases.
Unemployment benefits
Emergency unemployment benefits, claims screening, and overpayments. Compare the state data and see what the published fraud estimates measure.
Restaurant grants
Pandemic grants for restaurants and other eligible food businesses. Read the rules and explore where recipients also appear in other relief programs.
Venue grants
Relief for venues and other eligible live-entertainment businesses. Start with the grant program and trace connections to PPP and EIDL.
A sentence in a reconciliation bill closed off part of the Employee Retention Credit by date rather than eligibility.
A Thomson Reuters subsidiary scored nearly ten million unemployment claims. California stopped paying 1.1 million of them.
The Employee Retention Credit dispute continues after the disallowance letter arrives.
The updates feed follows new documents, datasets, articles, and interactives.
Built on public records
Original documents, downloadable tables, and the methods behind the figures. Free to read, with no account required.
About the archive & its methodsRead the filing or report behind a claim. Source pages identify the document and link to the original PDF where available.
Download the tables behind a ranking or chart. Check the definitions, release dates, and methods.
A charged loss, a fraud estimate, and an improper payment measure different things. The source and scope travel with the figure.