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National
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National
Spending

Spending Charts also: Revenue Charts Debt Charts Deficit Charts

This page shows the current trends in US national spending. Also see charts on US national spending history. See also: Social Security Spending and Medicare Spending

Total

Federal

State

Local

Recent and Estimated* US National Spending

Chart S.01t: National Spending in trillions

Chart S.02t: National Spending in percent GDP

The two charts show above show recent spending and estimates of future spending for all levels of government 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).

US Total Government Spending Since 1900

Chart S.03t: Total Government Spending

Government spending at the start of the 20th century was less than 7 percent of GDP. It vaulted to almost 30 percent of GDP by the end of World War I, and then settled down to 10 percent of GDP in the 1920s. In the 1930s spending doubled to 20 percent of GDP. Defense spending in World War II drove overall government spending over 50 percent of GDP before declining to 22 percent of GDP in the late 1940s. The 1950s began a steady spending increase to about 36 percent of GDP by 1982. In the 1990s and 2000s government spending stayed about constant at 33-35 percent of GDP, but in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008 spending has jogged up to 40 percent of GDP.

Federal, State, Local Spending in 20th Century

Chart S.04t: Federal State and Local Spending
in 20th Century

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.

Top Spending Requests:

Find DEFICIT stats and history.

Get WELFARE stats and history.

US BUDGET overview and pie chart.

Find NATIONAL DEBT today.

See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.

MILITARY SPENDING details, budget and history.

ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.

See BAR CHARTS of spending, debt.

See PIE CHARTS of total spending, federal spending.

Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See SPENDING HISTORY briefing.

Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

Make your own CUSTOM CHART.

Spending Data Sources

Spending data is from official government sources.
Federal data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
All other spending data comes from the US Census Bureau.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.

Detailed table of spending data sources here.

Federal spending data begins in 1792.

State and local spending data begins in 1890.

State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.

Spending 101 Courses

There’s More...

usgovernmentspending.com.

Where you go to get facts about government.

Prepared by Christopher Chantrill.
email: chrischantrill@gmail.com

Click the image on the right to buy usgovernmentspending.com’s ebook.
It costs only $0.99 and it contains all the analyses of spending history
on the website and more.

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Next Data Update

> State and Local Finances FY13

> data update schedule.

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US Government Spending 2012: free.

Data Sources for 2010_2020:

Sources for 2010:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
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

Sources for 2020:

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

CBO Long-term Outlook 2015

On June16, 2015, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Long Term Budget Outlook for 2015, which projects federal spending and revenue out into the 2080s. As before, the CBO study shows that federal health-care programs will eat the budget, with federal spending exceeding 35 percent GDP by the end of the century while federal revenue stays below 25 percent GDP.

UsGovernmentspending.com has updated its chart of the CBO Long Term Budget Outlook here. You can download the data and also view CBO Long Term Budget Outlooks going back to 1999.