Additional Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding and simplified PPP loan forgiveness will help small businesses around the country recover from the pandemic faster, CUNA and other organizations wrote to Congressional leadership Tuesday. The letter urges members of Congress not to leave Washington, D.C. without working to pass legislation to add additional PPP funding.

“Throughout the pandemic, helping small businesses has consistently been bipartisan,” the letter reads. “As lenders that support our nation’s small businesses and stepped up to help deliver the critical relief the Paycheck Protection Program provided, we strongly urge members of the Senate and House to continue these bipartisan efforts by quickly supporting an extension of PPP funding and a simpler forgiveness process that will make converting loans into grants easier and less technical for millions of small business borrowers that have PPP loans.”

Bipartisan groups of legislators in both chambers have introduced legislation to provide a simple forgiveness for PPP loans under $150,000. This accounts for more than 87% of total loans, but less than 28% of loan dollars.

Credit unions made more than 170,000 PPP loans averaging $49,000 each, with some loans as small as $1,000 or less.