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Spending Charts also: Revenue Charts Debt Charts Deficit Charts

Total

Federal

State

Local

Recent and Estimated* US State Government Spending

Spending in billions

Click chart for briefing on Entitlement Spending.
For numbers and more click here.

Spending in Percent GDP

Click chart for briefing on Entitlement Spending.
For numbers and more click here.

The two charts show above show recent and "guesstimated" direct spending for state governments in the United States. On the left is a chart of spending in current dollars. On the right is a chart of spending as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Note:

* State Spending after 2010 is estimated.

US State Government Spending Since 1900

Click chart for briefing on State Government Spending.
For numbers from 1900-2018 click here.

At the start of the 20th century state government spending was the smallest component of government, expending less than one percent of GDP each year. But state government spending has steadily increased throughout the 20th century. It went over 1 percent of GDP in the 1920s and exploded to 3 percent of GDP in the 1930s. In the 1950s state government began a steady growth, from 3 percent of GDP in the early 1950s to over 8 percent of GDP by 2000.

Federal, State, Local Spending in 20th Century

Click chart for briefing on Total Spending.
For numbers from 1900-2018 click here.

At the start of the 20th century, government spending was principally local government spending. Out of a total of 7 percent of GDP, a full 4 percent was spent at the local level. Federal spending spiked in World War I, but in the 1920s, local government still represented about half of all government spending. In the 1930s this changed, and federal spending surged to about half of all government spending. After the spike of World War II the federal share increased again and state government spending also began to increase as a percent of GDP, so that by the 2010s federal spending checked in at over 20 percent of GDP, state spending amounted to 8 to 9 percent of GDP and local spending exceeded 10 percent of GDP.

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Data Sources for 2008_2018:

Sources for 2008:

GDP: Measuring Worth - US GDP
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances

Sources for 2018:

GDP: Fed. Budget: Hist. Table 10.1
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
“Guesstimated” by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

State and Local Spending for Individual States from 1957 to 1991

On June 15, 2013 usgovernmentspending.com loaded state and local spending and revenue for individual states going back to 1957.

Up to now, we have provided state and local finances from the present back to 1992 using data provided by the Census Bureau here. But the Census Bureau also has data on individual states going back to 1957 here in file Govt_Finances.zip.

There is a break in data series at 1991-92. The Census Bureau prior to 1992 has fewer line items than the post-1992 data. There is also a break at 1976-77. The Census Bureau prior to 1977 has fewer line items than the post-1977 data. Typically, the data in reports for earlier years is reported in an aggregate item that sums up the detailed items in the more recent data reports.

These breaks in data have produced "notches" in some of the data series, and we have done some "juggle-ology" to produce smoother data series, as detailed below.

One problem in the pre-1992 data is that Medicaid is not broken out of welfare. Up to now, for pre 1992 years we have estimated Medicaid expenses for all states combined based upon the assumption that the intergovernmental transfers to health care all apply to Medicaid and can be subtracted from the gross welfare expenditures to produce welfare net of Medicaid. For each state, therefore, we have broken down pre-1992 gross welfare expenditures between net welfare and Medicaid based upon the overall ratio for all states between net welfare (gross welfare less health care intergovernmental transfer) and Medicaid (health care intergovernmental transfer).

Another problem that the pre-1992 data seems to include judicial and legal system expenditures under "General Control" in the "General Government" category. Data since 1992 has separate data series for judicial and legal system expenditures and we showed it under "Protection" in the default data view. We have therefore created a new "default" view with judicial and legal system expenditures included under "General Government." The old default view -- now labeled "old" -- has the judicial and legal system expenditures included under "Protection." Typically, any links you have saved previous to June 15, 2013 will categorize data under the old default view. New links will use the new default view, unless you select the old default view.

For 1958-60 combined state-and-local data only is reported in the Census Bureau data. So we have estimated state data and local data by interpolation from 1957 and 1961.