Across the Universe: Policy Support for Employment and Revenue in the Pandemic Recession

Using data from 14 government sources, we develop comprehensive estimates of US economic activity by sector, legal form of organization, and firm size to characterize how four government direct-lending programs—the Paycheck Protection Program, Main Street Lending Program, Corporate Credit Facilities, and Municipal Liquidity Facility—relate to these classes of economic activity in the United States. The classes targeted by these programs are vast—accounting for 97 percent of total US employment—though entity-specific financial criteria limit coverage within specific programs. These programs notionally cover a far larger universe than what was targeted by analogous Great Recession-era lending policies.