A new study released by Piedmont Rising shows that North Carolina’s small businesses have received just 2.5% of the total $189 billion in federal aid allocated through the Trump administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The data also show that businesses owned by people of color have disproportionately failed to secure PPP loans. 

The program, which has been championed by President Trump and Senator Thom Tillis, “has failed to assist the vast majority of small businesses, including in North Carolina, with a large share of minority-owned businesses left behind,” according to the report. 

The study found that: 

• North Carolina – which has more than 890,000 small businesses – has received just 66,677 PPP loans; 
• 80% of small businesses that applied for relief money didn’t receive any, and North Carolina received only 2.5 percent of the nearly $189 billion that was lent; and
• “While businesses of color account for 30 percent of all U.S. businesses, roughly 95% of Black-owned businesses, 91% of Latino-owned businesses, 91% of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander-owned businesses, and 75% of Asian-owned businesses failed to secure loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.”

Just as troubling are reports from various news outlets that firms with ties to the Trump administration and even the president’s reelection campaign have received millions of taxpayer dollars while business across North Carolina continue to close. 

“These disheartening findings show the Paycheck Protection Program is clearly not providing the relief that North Carolina’s small business owners need right now,” said NCDP Communications Director Austin Cook. “The Trump administration’s mismanagement of this initiative is directly shuttering more businesses and costing our state thousands of jobs. The fact that large firms with ties to the administration have received millions of dollars is just more evidence of the president’s refusal to look out for North Carolina families in a time of crisis.”