NAGGL has submitted a statement for the Congressional record for the House Small Business Committee hearing today at 10 AM ET entitled “Driving Economic Growth: SBA Lending Programs and the Vital Role of Community Banks”.
NAGGL’s CEO and President, Tony Wilkinson, writes, in part: “All loan programs create jobs and community opportunity, and the 7(a) Loan Program is no exception—roughly 886,007 jobs were created or retained just last Fiscal Year alone thanks to 7(a) loans, according to data submitted by 7(a) borrowers to the SBA in FY24 . If we assumed a national average wage of $61,984, as most recently reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for each of those jobs, then the 7(a) program could be deemed to have supported at least $54.92 billion in income across the country in one Fiscal Year. These impressive jobs numbers make the 7(a) Loan Program the highest job creation program among SBA’s lending programs…. The historical performance metrics over the past decade also tell a success story. According to SBA’s own data, the average repurchase rate on defaulted loans has remained below 1% over the past 10 years, while total recovery rates on collateral remains strong. Putting the two statistics together, SBA reports a historically low charge-off rate for FY 2024 of 0.56%, outperforming four of the past ten Fiscal Years. Put simply, 99.44% of all 7(a) loans are currently repaid, a tremendous statistic and a tribute to the public-private partnership under which this program operates.”
