NEW from me -- One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Paycheck Protection Program is a type of company that only technically employs most of its workers: Staffing firms, which handle payroll and recruitment for other companies, and got billions of dollars in loans. 1/
Temps are often the first to go in a recession, and the industry did shed hundreds of thousands of positions in April and May. But some sectors did very well, including healthcare and janitorial, as companies needed to bring people on for COVID-related jobs ASAP. 2/
We found that about 11,000 temp agencies got PPP money. A substantial number of those used the money to pay temps who were *still working on contracts,* which means that the bills paid by clients often went straight to the staffing firm’s bottom line. 3/
This wasn’t unique to staffing firms -- the SBA didn’t require companies to prove that the jobs would’ve gone away but for the PPP money. However, since payroll is basically the only expense that staffing companies have, the opportunity for abuse was much larger. 4/
It’s just another way in which the PPP -- which has helped millions of businesses stay afloat -- was plagued with poor implementation and fuzzy targeting, resulting in money going to some companies that were doing fine and not making it to others that had suffered the most. 5/
(For another example of that, see this story by my colleagues @paulkiel and @jackgillum on the huge number of firms that received loans for all of their various subsidiaries, a phenomenon that’s also present in the staffing industry: propublica.org/article/differ… ) 6/
ANYWAY HERE'S THE STORY: propublica.org/article/the-sm…
We're interested in all ways in which this enormous stimulus program both helped and didn't, so if you know stuff, drop me a line or fill out our nifty form: propublica.org/getinvolved/co…
We're interested in all ways in which this enormous stimulus program both helped and didn't, so if you know stuff, drop me a line or fill out our nifty form: propublica.org/getinvolved/co…
