(Reuters) – Retailers, restaurants and hotels — on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic — got a combined 18% of the $342 billion allocated as of Thursday under the a new federal government program to help small firms keep paying their employees during widespread shutdown, data from the agency running the program showed on Friday.
Construction firms — the single industry with the largest take, got about 13% of the total. In all the SBA had funded 1.66 million loans. Firms in Texas, California and New York together accounted for about 23% of all loans so far.
The data doesn’t include the final $7 billion of money that has been allocated under the program. The Trump administration is negotiating with Congress over adding an additional $250 billion to the pot.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir, Editing by Franklin Paul)
