In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to support small businesses. However, some businesses are not eligible for this program if an owner of 20% or more of the equity of the business has had certain disqualifying events based on their history of involvement in the justice system. The goal of this report was to estimate the overall impact of these criminal history disqualifications. You can download the report here. The report was also released as Census Bureau ADEP Working Paper ADEP-WP-2020-04.

In anticipation of researcher access to CJARS data through the Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) system, CJARS has released a draft of the data documentation. Stay tuned for regular updates.