Data Notes

Searchable PPP Data Table

The data presented here is almost entirely in its original form. Changes have been made for readability purposes (e.g., capitalization or spacing). None of these changes altered the values presented here (except one instance of a state labeled as "FI" that was clearly intended to be "FL").

Some of those changes were the result of the work done at the non-profit Investigative Reporting Workshop, based out of the American University School of Communication in Washington, DC. Some we made ourselves. All of them were made with the goal of making this data easier to read and interpret.

Because this searchable data set does not include any changes to the values of the data, the figures presented here may not match exactly with those presented in the Summary Stats table, where we changed the geographic state on some loans if we found it to be likely incorrect (see the data notes on the Summary Stats for more details). When in doubt, the original data from the Small Business Administration set can be accessed below.

See the original data

Summary Stats

We found 1,013 instances in the original data set where there was a mismatch between a loan's state vs. its congressional district (e.g., a loan with a congressional district listed as CA-19 but a state listed as AL). We also found 165 instances in which a loan had no state listed at all. In these cases, we tried to determine the true state of the loan by following this process:

1. If the state is blank but there is a ZIP code listed, search for it in Google to determine the state.
2. If the state and the congressional district don't match, search for the street address in Google to determine in which state the street address actually exists.
3. If the street address cannot be found or if the address exists in both states, add in the business name to the search to determine if there are any other public records or databases that list the company and the state in which it is based.
4. Change the state listed in our pppdata.us database if there is reasonable evidence to support doing so.

We updated the states on a total of 299 loans, changing 272 states on loans where the original state and congressional district did not match and adding 27 states to loans that originally did not have one. In every case, the decision to change the state was a judgement call that was arrived at in a good-faith effort to provide you with the most accurate data. That said, at the end of the day we may not have gotten it right every time. If you believe a state designation was changed incorrectly, please contact us. The full list of loans with mismatched or missing states (along with the changes we have made) is available below.

The figures presented here may not match exactly with those presented in the searchable PPP data table, where no states have been changed (except one instance of a state labeled as "FI" that was clearly intended to be "FL").

Download the state changes