Bailouts · Small business & COVID relief
COVID disaster loans (EIDL) (2020–22)
Who: Nearly 4 million small businesses and nonprofits. What: Low-interest SBA disaster loans, plus $27.5B in grants (“advances”) that did not have to be repaid.
Outcome
Loans are still being repaid: $75.2B charged off through June 2025 and $267B of principal still outstanding, so the final cost will rise.
Legal authority: CARES Act and later pandemic laws.
Who got it: What was paid
Oversight
Who was supposed to watch this money, and what happened to them. Oversight of every bailout →
- Mar 2020▲ Oversight addedThe CARES Act creates the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a special inspector general for pandemic lending (SIGPR), and a Congressional Oversight Commission. Source
- Apr 2020▼ Oversight cutTrump removes Glenn Fine, whom fellow inspectors general had chosen to chair the pandemic oversight committee, four days after PPP lending began. Source
- Nov 2020▲ Oversight addedA federal judge orders every PPP borrower's name and loan amount released, in a lawsuit by 11 news organizations; the SBA releases them December 1. Source
- Aug 2022▲ Oversight addedCongress extends the deadline to prosecute PPP and EIDL fraud to 10 years; the House vote was 421–0. Source
- Jan 2025▼ Oversight cutTrump fires 17 inspectors general without the notice the law requires, including those overseeing PPP and EIDL (SBA), farm aid (USDA), hospital relief (HHS), pandemic transit and airport aid (DOT), pandemic unemployment (Labor), and school relief (Education). USDA's was escorted out of her office. A judge later ruled the firings unlawful but did not reinstate anyone. Source
- Mar 2025▼ Oversight cutThe SBA announces it will cut 43% of its staff, about 2,700 jobs, mostly positions added for the pandemic programs; it says its loan and disaster services will not be affected. Source
- Jul 2025▲ Oversight addedThe One Big Beautiful Bill Act extends the pandemic oversight committee to 2034 with $88M and widens its jurisdiction. Source
- Oct 2025▼ Oversight cutThe White House budget office withholds funding Congress appropriated for the inspectors general's council and the pandemic oversight committee, calling inspectors general “corrupt” and “partisan”; Oversight.gov and at least 15 watchdog sites go dark for about seven weeks until Republican senators Grassley and Collins press for the money. Source
- Sep 2026▲ Oversight addedThe Justice Department and SBA announce “Operation No Doze”: enforcement actions against more than 160 defendants (about 80 of them newly charged) and 870,000 borrowers suspended over $39B in suspected PPP and EIDL fraud. Source
Recovery on charged-off COVID disaster loans has been under 1% of the original amounts (SBA OIG, Aug 2025).
Worth knowing
The SBA Inspector General estimates more than $136B (33%) of EIDL money was potentially fraudulent.
Loan totals differ by source: the SBA said in June 2022 it had approved nearly $390B of these loans, while CRS counts $378.4B approved. The SBA figure is used here; with the $27.5B of grants it makes the $418B total.