The missing funds make up 17% of the $1.2 trillion disbursed by the Small Business Administration. A report from the SBA's inspector general, Hannibal"Mike" Ware, updated previous estimates that have been used by investigators to recover fraudulent or wasted funds.So far, close to $30 billion, which is 15% of the total, has been recovered through a joint effort between the SBA, the inspector general's office, the U.S.
The PPP program, which gave money to businesses in a similar fashion to a grant, saw a slightly lower estimate of possible fraud: around $64 billion, or 8% of the total funds sent out. Ware predicted in a 2021 interview with ABC News that,"In terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these COVID relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it."