Small businesses are still having trouble getting loans.  Take a look at the trend for business loans under $1 million over the last decade:

And of the loans under $1 million, most are under $100,000:

These charts are from a recent post by Matthew Koepke and James B. Thomson of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Koepke and Thomson took a look at the decline in small business lending, and found a lot about which we should be concerned: in particular, the decline in the smaller loans.

From the 2000 to 2008, the increase in small business loans was driven by an increase in the number of loans made. The general decline in the average small business loan made over this time period was due in large part to strong growth in the number of loans under $100,000. While the average growth in the small business loan portfolios of banks and thrifts through 2008 was 13 percent, the number of loans under $100,000 grew 14 percent compared to 6 percent and 7 percent for loans between $100,000 and $250,000 and loans between $250,000 and $1 million, respectively. From June 2008 to June 2010, the shrinking small business loan portfolios of FDIC-insured institutions have been driven by a combination of shrinking loan balances (falling 4 percent a year) and declines in the numbers of loans (falling nearly 9 percent a year). Again, the reversal of growth in the number of loans has been driven by the decline in the number of loans under $100,000, which declined nearly 10 percent a year between June 2008 and June 2010. In comparison, the number of loans between $250,000 and $1 million fell only one percent a year and those $100,000 and $250,000 fell only 4 percent a year over the same time period.

Read the full article here.