Mother Jones, April 25, 2021, PPP Lending Was Supposed to Help Small Businesses in Kansas City. That’s Not What Happened.
In Kansas City neighborhoods seared by decades of government-imposed racial discrimination, the Paycheck Protection Program’s forgivable loans arrived last year at lower rates than in the rest of the city. East Side areas “redlined” in the 1930s because Black people lived there—a federal decision that effectively blocked investment—received 17% fewer PPP loans than if they’d gotten an amount proportionate to their share of the city’s small employers. Affluent, largely white ZIP codes given preferential treatment by redlining received 23% more.
Victoria Orozco at Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab, Robert Nelson at the University of Richmond, Brent Never at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s Bruce Mitchell, Jason Richardson and Jad Edlebi offered feedback and advice at various stages of the analysis.
