Social distancing restrictions and health- and economic-driven demand shifts from COVID-19 shut down many small businesses with especially negative impacts on minority owners. Is there evidence that the unprecedented federal government response to help small businesses—the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the related COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL)—which had a stated goal of helping disadvantaged groups, was disbursed evenly to minority communities? In this descriptive research note, we provide the first detailed analysis of how the 2020 PPP and EIDL funds were disbursed across minority communities in the country. From our analysis of data on the universe of loans from these programs and administrative data on employer firms, we generally find a slightly positive relationship between PPP loan receipt per business and the minority share of the population or businesses, although funds flowed to minority communities later than to communities with lower minority shares. PPP loan amounts per employee, however, are negatively related to the minority share of the population. The EIDL program, in contrast, both in numbers per business and amounts per employee, was distributed positively to minority communities.

从COVID-19以来，由于社会疏远限制以及健康和经济驱动的需求转移，许多小企业倒闭，这对少数族裔所有者尤其有负面影响。是否有证据表明，联邦政府为帮助小型企业而做出的前所未有的反应—薪资保护计划（PPP）和相关的COVID-19经济伤害灾难贷款（EIDL）—既定目标是帮助弱势群体，但已平均分配给少数群体社区？在此描述性研究说明中，我们提供了有关2020年PPP和EIDL资金如何在该国少数民族社区中分配的第一笔详细分析。根据我们对这些计划的贷款数据的分析和有关雇主公司的行政数据的分析，尽管资金流向少数族裔社区的时间晚于流向少数族裔比例较低的社区，但我们通常会发现每项业务的PPP贷款收入与少数族裔人口或企业之间存在较小的正相关关系。但是，每名雇员的PPP贷款金额与人口的少数群体负相关。相比之下，EIDL计划在每个企业的数量和每个雇员的数量上都积极地分配给了少数民族社区。