$92M awarded to local businesses ELLSWORTH — More than 2,200 Hancock County businesses received a total of $92.24 million as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, a measure intended at staving off economic collapse as businesses around the country scaled or shut down due to the pandemic, according to an analysis by The American of recently released federal data. The average loan amount to a business based in Hancock County was roughly $42,000. The overwhelming majority of the loans — 2,111 of the 2,201, or 96 percent — were for $150,000 or less, with all of those payments accounting for a little more than half of the total funding distributed in the county, or close to $50 million. On the other end of the scale, seven companies, five of which are nonprofits with several hundred employees, received 20 percent of the total funds distributed, totaling nearly $19 million.