The number of Emergency Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) grants issued through the Small Business Association (SBA) during the pandemic has exceeded the number of firms eligible for them in certain areas, which Bloomberg said was indicative of wide-scale fraud. In order to qualify for the $10,000 grants, a business must have at least 10 employees.

The biggest discrepancy was found in Illinois' 2nd district (1,900 eligible business vs. 24,300 grants). Large discrepancies were also found in the state's1st, 4th and 7th congressional districts. Among the four districts, data shows that there are only 129,000 eligible businesses, yet 707,000 of the $10,000 grants were issued. Other districts with wide gulfs between eligible businesses and grants issued include Georgia's 13th (2,000 eligible vs. 8,900 grants), 5th (4,400 vs 8,900) and 4th (1,900 vs. 7,900); Texas' 9th (2,500 vs. 7,400) and 18th (4,100 vs. 8,000); Florida's 24th (2,400 vs. 6,400) and 20th (3,000 vs. 6,600); and Tennessee's 9th (3,000 vs. 6,300).

Overall, Bloomberg was able to identify 52 congressional districts across the country where the number of $10,000 grants exceeded the number of eligible businesses, for a total of $1.3 billion in suspect payments. This is far in excess of the SBA's inspector general's assessment of $47 million in fraudulent payments .

The SBA is also under fire for failing to provide the names of borrowers of $25,000 and up in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), as required by a 2006 law, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a panel of inspectors generally responsible for ensuring that payments are made appropriately, pointed out to the SBA that the 2006 Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFTA) requires that all loans, grants, contracts and other federal financial assistance totaling $25,000 or more be disclosed on a publicly searchable website, USASpending.gov. The panel said that the SBA has not made those disclosures. The SBA, which did reveal information on those businesses that received $15,000 or more in loans, said that doing so would create a privacy risk for loan recipients, as the loans are scaled to the size of the payroll. As such, it withheld this information. 

The Journal noted that the FFTA doesn't have any enforcement mechanism, but generally hasn't needed one because the vast majority of government agencies comply with this law. Not disclosing the data is a highly unusual move, but the lack of enforcement has meant that the SBA can drag its feet on this matter.