This is, in essence, transferring the debt from people who own businesses to people who - on average - do not own businesses. The _actual_ most regressive invisible tax hike we have ever had but sure. . . yay.
That's a good thing.
Sadly we’ve also heard a lot of stories of complete misuse and outright fraudulent use of PPP loans. I’m paying for those unless the government gets that money back (after spending hundreds of thousands in legal fees). Whereas as far as I know student loans can’t be misused, at least not to the extent that many PPP loans were.
Isn't getting their labour for free (well, paid for by the taxpayer) pretty much the same as company owners just being handed that 87k? It's money the company didn't have to spend on wages. Were your employees not able to work? (Not intended as criticism - more of an observation. I don't know the real situation etc).
However because of covid cash flow issues, I would have had to fire half of my employees without the loan and the payback. That would have sucked for all of us.
Frankly, as I see it, the PPP program was better than the alternatives as my employees didn't wind up on unemploymet.
In one way the PPP is a bad idea as it doesn't let the market correct itself as well as it might - perhaps my company is too fragile. However, we then to not like to see people starving and losing their homes. Clutters up the sidewalks.