The Payroll Protection Program (PPP) distributed an enormous amount of money. Who received it? The SBA has released the data files and anyone can download and examine them.

The amount of money that was given away is astounding (especially since it was done with very little oversight). I have done some preliminary analysis to see how much money was distributed to each state (in total and per capita). This analysis can be seen in this Github Jupyter notebook (be patient, it may take some time to render!).

I've been trying to figure out how to track / view the data at smaller scales than the entire state. The PPP data includes Congressional district information, so I've created maps that show which districts got more money.

I've also been using Google to geocode the data for religious organizations with lat/long and county information. Looking at county data is probably the most granular I will be able to go, unless I want to dig down to individual census tract data.

I am collaborating with Dr. KB Dennis Meade on a project to examine how the PPP funds were distributed to different religious groups, especially with regard to those distributed to African American / Black churches.

There is information about the businesses that borrowed money, the lenders that provided the funds, the number of jobs reported by the employer, the NAICS code, and demographic information about race, ethnicity, gender, and veteran status. Unfortunately, for the majority of the records, the demographic information isn't recorded:

• • Race - "Unanswered" 75% (White 13.7%, Black 7.1%, Asian 2.6%)

  • Ethnicity - "Unknown" 71% (Not Hispanic: 25%; Hispanic 3.2%)

  • Gender - "Unanswered" 61% (Male owned: 25%, Female owned 13%)

  • Veteran - "Unanswered" 67% (Non-V: 31%, V:1.8%)

In the PPP dataset, one field is the businesses NAICS code. There is a specific NAICS code (813110) for religious businesses:

This industry comprises (1) establishments primarily engaged in operating religious organizations, such as churches, religious temples, mosques, and monasteries, and/or (2) establishments primarily engaged in administering an organized religion or promoting religious activities.

My preliminary analysis of the data suggests that Black Churches received PPP loans / grants at much lower rates that other religious groups. The amount per job received by Black Churches was also markedly lower than that granted to other groups.