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As part of the $2.2 trillion pandemic relief CARES Act enacted in spring 2020, states received $150 billion in general assistance via the Coronavirus Relief Fund. Within limits tied to the pandemic, the Relief Fund is meant to be flexible, and allowing states, U.S. territories, and tribal governments to direct money where it is most needed.

In exchange for the money – no state got less than $1.25 billion – governments are required to document how they are spending it. Unfortunately, the rules governing that disclosure are very vague, and many states are failing to disclose their uses.

February 23, 2021--In early February, the SBA released data on more than 891,000 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans issued since the reopening of the program on January 11. Of this new tranche of loans, roughly 106,000 were of $150,000 or more, amounting to $45 billion in sum. Those new loans of $150,000 or more are now available on Covid Stimulus Watch.

Since December, the SBA has disclosed exact dollar amounts for all PPP loans in its data releases. The new batch of loans, as well as previous loans, are available on Covid Stimulus Watch with exact loan values, allowing for more

By Mellissa Chang

Covid Stimulus Watch now contains award information for almost 400,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) payments from the CARES Act, amounting to more than $60 billion in loans. To date, the Small Business Administration has approved approximately $164 billion in EIDL loans, roughly half of its $360 billion allocation, to almost 3 million business. Of these loans, 80% were less than $150,000 and the average loan amount was just over $62,000.

Due to the high volume of loans and the relatively small size of most loan amounts, the Covid Stimulus Watch database only

by Phil Mattera

The Department of Health and Human Services keeps updating the list of hospitals and other medical facilities receiving aid through the Provider Relief Fund. At Covid Stimulus Watch we scramble to capture the latest data and link the facilities listed by HHS to their health system parent entities.

HHS posted two updates to the list this week, and we have just finished adding our parent links to the data, which is now live on our site. We now include more than 11,000 grants of $500,000 or more from the program. These have a total value of $45 billion. For more info, see

The uproar over the participation of larger companies in the Paycheck Protection Program is a sign that the country will increasingly confront a broader issue about the massive Covid-19 relief effort: does every company deserve assistance during a crisis that affects all parts of the economy?

Data tip No.2 from Covid Stimulus Watch: it turns out for-profit colleges are getting covid aid under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. We've added entries for the likes of DeVry and the Univ. of Phoenix.

Data tip from Covid Stimulus Watch: we now have some entries for stimulus awards to for-profit healthcare providers. For example, over $1 billion to Community Health Systems Inc.

Among the limited number of corporations known to have been awarded federal loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, at least 16 pay their workers less than the national median household income level. Five pay wages so low they fall below the poverty line for a family of four.

Washington, April 30, 2020 — Amid continuing controversy over some of the companies receiving federal financial assistance under the Paycheck Protection Program, a new website launched today makes it easier to see the accountability track records of companies getting help through the PPP and the other programs authorized by the massive CARES Act.