I know a few business owners who received these checks and in their cases, A) they weren't nearly that much, B) they (helped) cover expenses, like paying rent and employees (the majority of their costs). I would expect the vast majority of non-fraudulent PPP ended up in the hands of employees first, for rent second, and to business owners pockets third (or not at all in many cases, e.g. plenty of places went out of business).

> The $1200 checks are nothing by comparison.

By what measure exactly? The total expenditure for those was >800 billion, which I believe is more than the total expenditure for the PPP.

There are public records of PPP payouts. There is no shortage of BS on it too. There are pages and pages of million dollar+ loans in my neck of the woods.

A local pizza joint took home a quarter million dollars. Local two-person investment firm: $260k. Family member of mine bragging about record revenues & so much work: 300k. Two places I used to work (who are bragging on LI about having too much work so are hiring like mad, one of which uses mostly offshore workers) $1.7MM and $1.1MM. Big local property management company benefiting from outrageous rents: $2MM. Several staffing companies $10MM!! That might be the max, there are lots of $10MM companies on the list.

And there are countless 1 person LLCs that took home $20k+. Go put in your ZIP, sort by least number of employers and look at how many individuals where handed out five figures. Bunches of them around me were lawyers and accountants.

> The total expenditure for those was >800 billion, which I believe is more than the total expenditure for the PPP.

Barely, they were both around $800 billion. Just one went to every American, while the other went to the Business Class (who also received those stimulus checks, btw).

This is key. Around here a bunch of small construction firms took PPP loans despite having a full pipeline of work. The housing construction boom continued unbated despite the pandemic.