Pandemic aid for small businesses went beyond hard-hit companies.

Manufacturers, minor league baseball team among the recipients

WASHINGTON >> The government on Monday identified roughly 650,000 mostly small businesses and nonprofits that received taxpayer money from a program that likely helped prevent the job market meltdown from growing worse but that also benefited some politically connected firms.

Recipients covered a broad swath of industries, with some that were less directly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, such as manufacturing and construction, receiving a greater proportion of the loans than the hardhit restaurant, bar and hotel industries. Many law firms and private equity companies also obtained loans.

Businesses owned by politicians also borrowed from the Treasury Department’s Payroll Protection Program, including a minor league baseball team owned by the family of the governor of Ohio. A large franchisee of Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants, whose CEO is a major donor to President Donald Trump, received loans totaling between $15 and $30 million.

The program launched April 3 and as of June 30 had handed out $521 billion. Treasury identified just a fraction of the total borrowers Monday, naming only those companies that got more than $150,000. Those firms made up less than 15% of the nearly 5 million small companies and organizations that received loans.

Economists generally credit the program with helping prevent the job market meltdown from being much worse. Employers added 7.5 million jobs in May and June, a solid increase though it left the economy with nearly 15 million fewer jobs than be

fore the pandemic. The PPP probably drove some of that gain.

And research by Tomaz Cajner, an economist at the Federal Reserve, and seven colleagues found that companies with fewer than 50 workers before the pandemic saw their hiring rise 12% in May, while jobs grew just 5% in larger firms, suggesting PPP helped fuel rehiring.

But the program was only intended to carry the economy through a short interruption from the coronavirus pandemic, which is now threatening to have a longer-lasting impact. Treasury initially required the loans to be spent within 8 weeks of being received, though that was later lengthened to 24 weeks.

The public may never know the identity of more than 80% of the nearly 5 million beneficiaries to date because the administration has refused to release details on loans under $150,000. That secrecy spurred a lawsuit by news organizations including The Associated Press.

Treasury has released only dollar ranges for the loan amounts, rather than exact figures. Businesses owned by several politicians were listed among the recipients, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.

DeWine Seeds-Silver Dollar Baseball received a loan of $150,000 to $350,000, the government said. The company owns the Asheville Tourists, a minor league baseball team in North Carolina, which was purchased by the governor’s family in 2010. DeWine’s son, Brian DeWine, currently serves as president of the baseball team. The minor league baseball season was canceled for 2020.

And Waterville Valley Holdings, an investment group led by the family of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, got a loan of between $350,000 and $1 million. The company is the principal investor in the Waterville Valley Resort, a ski area where Sununu, a Republican, served as CEO until just before he took office in 2017.

Restaurants, bars and hotels, the hardest-hit industry from the coronavirus that lost nearly half of its pre-pandemic jobs in March and April, ranked fifth on a list of recipients. Health care, professional and business services, construction and manufacturing received a greater share of loans. And according to an analysis by Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, some states with the smallest increases in unemployment from the pandemic got more loans than harder-hit states.