Despite being touted as a lifeline to small businesses, newly released data from the Small Business Administration (SBA) shows that more than half of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds went to big businesses, which together made up just 5 percent of the total recipients, the Washington Post reported. These 600 or so large entities—including Uno Pizzeria & Grill, Legal Sea Foods, Boston Market and Cava Mezze Grill, and various law firms, churches and professional staffing services—generally got the maximum loan amount of $10 million.

Conversely, while 87 percent of the recipients were smaller businesses with loans of $150,000 or less—entities such as a small local accounting firm that serves the community—they represented just 28 percent of the distributed monies. The Post said that the numbers indicate that, despite assurances that the program has helped small businesses the most, the majority of benefit went instead to big businesses.

There were also, it seems, numerous data collection issues in general. The data shows that many companies reported that that they "retained" far more workers than they actually employ. Further, the SBA itself had previously reported certain numbers of jobs saved in particular industries that exceed the number of people in the entire sector. And for some 875,000 borrowers, the data shows either zero jobs supported, or else that there's no information on the matter at all.

The new data came from a court order to release the data in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Post plus other news organizations. It confirms the numerous reports over the spring and summer that, despite the administration talking about small businesses, it was large firms that took the lion's share of the funding.