PPP loan amounts pile up at the program's rule limits: 721,552 loans of exactly $20,833
Of 11,468,210 PPP loans, 721,552 were for exactly $20,833, the ceiling for a self-employed borrower with no employees, and 5,842 were for exactly $2 million, the second-draw cap. The $150,000 rounded bin holds 2.05 times the average of its neighbors. Bunching at a limit can be the loan formula working as written; these counts do not show which loans were improper.
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Method and source notes
Each bar counts loans whose current approval amount (the FOIA files' CurrentApprovalAmount column), rounded to the nearest $1,000, falls in that bin. Each chart window takes loans within $5,000 of $150,000, within $2,500 of $20,833 or within $50,000 of $2 million, so the first and last bars cover only part of a $1,000 bin. The "vs. neighbors" columns divide the highlighted bin by the average of the two adjacent $1,000 bins. Exact-amount counts are kept separate, because a rounded bin and an exact amount answer different questions.
$20,833: a self-employed borrower filing Schedule C with no employees could borrow 2.5 months of net profit, with net profit capped at $100,000 a year ($100,000 ÷ 12 × 2.5 = $20,833.33, before any refinanced disaster loan). The $21,000 bin holds 721,552 loans of exactly $20,833, 445,811 of exactly $20,832 and 77,904 of exactly $20,833.33.
$150,000: under the rules SBA issued in January 2021 for the Economic Aid Act, signed December 27, 2020, second-draw loans of $150,000 or less needed no revenue-reduction documents at application. Loans of $150,000 or less needed no forgiveness documents beyond a certification. The bunching is older than those rules: 2,784 of the 6,690 loans of exactly $150,000 were first-draw loans approved between April 3 and August 8, 2020.
$2 million: the cap applies to second-draw loans. Of the 5,842 loans of exactly $2 million, 5,661 were second draws and 181 were first draws.
Sources
- SBA PPP FOIA loan-level files, 2024-09-30 release: 11,468,210 loans, $792.6 billion in current approval amounts. Every count on this page is measured from these files.
- Interim Final Rule: PPP as Amended by Economic Aid Act (SBA, January 6, 2021): the Schedule C maximum-loan method and the $150,000 forgiveness provision.
- Interim Final Rule: Paycheck Protection Program Second Draw Loans (SBA, January 14, 2021): the $2 million second-draw cap and the $150,000 revenue-documentation line.
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