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Tuesday February 7, 2012 
compiled by Christopher Chantrill

BUDGET DATA

US Budgets

Debt Charts

Recent and Budgeted* US Total Government Debt

Debt in billions


Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers and more click here.

Debt in Percent GDP


Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers and more click here.

The two charts show above show recent and estimated gross debt issued by all levels of government in the United States. On the left is a chart of the debt in current dollars. On the right is a chart of the debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Note:

* Federal Debt after 2010 is budgeted.

US Total Government Debt Since 1900


Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers from 1900-2016 click here.

Government debt began the 20th century at less than 20 percent of GDP. It jerked above 45 percent as a result of World War I and above 70 percent in the depths of the Great Depression. Debt has breached 100 percent of GDP twice since 1900: during World War II and in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.

Federal, State, Local Debt in 20th Century


Click chart for briefing on Total Debt.
For numbers from 1900-2016 click here.


At the beginning of the 20th century debt was equally divided between federal and state and local debt, totaling less than 20 percent of GDP. After World War I, the total debt surged to 45% of GDP. But by the mid 1920s debt had declined to below 35 percent of GDP. Then came the Great Depression, boosting total public debt to 70 percent of GDP. World War II boosted federal debt to almost 122 percent of GDP in 1946, with state and local debt adding another 7 percent. For the next 35 years successive governments brought the debt below 50 percent of GDP, but President Reagan increased the federal debt up over 50 perent of GDP, and total debt towards 70 perent to win the Cold War. President Bush increased the debt to fight a war on terror and bail out the banks in the crisis of 2008.



There’s much, much more:

  • Create CHARTS of government spending history here.
  • Look at TABLES of spending breakdown year-by-year for federal, state, and local here.
  • DOWNLOAD data for a single year here.
  • Take a TOUR of the website here.


What is the spending data; where is it from?

  • Federal spending data begins in 1792.
  • State and local spending data begins in 1902.
  • 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 measuringworth.com.

 

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State Finances Update for FY 2010

On December 14, 2011 the US Census Bureau released data on state finances for FY 2010 here, including spending and revenue for each individual state and for all states combined.

On December 27, 2011 we updated state and local spending and revenue data as follows:

  1. We replaced "guesstimated" state spending and revenue data for FY2010 using the data from the Census Bureau.
  2. We replaced "guesstimated" local spending and revenue data for FY 2010 with estimates for each spending and revenue category using the trends in state finances between FY 2009 and FY 2010.
  3. We replaced "guesstimated" state revenue data for FY 2011 with data from the Census Bureau's quarterly state tax summary here.
  4. We replaced "guesstimated" local revenue data for FY 2011 with estimates for each category using trends for each category of state revenue between FY 2010 and FY 2011.
  5. We replaced "guesstimated" state and local spending and revenue for FY 2012 thru FY2017 with new guesstimates based on the latest Census Bureau data for FY 2010 state finances and FY 2011 quarterly tax data.
The Census Bureau expects to release local spending and revenue data for FY 2010 in July 2012.

Highlights: State spending on Welfare was up from a "guesstimated" $164 billion to $237 billion.  Business and Other Revenue was up from a "guesstimated" $174 billion to $456 billion.  This reflects the $289 billion profit reported on state pension plans for FY 2010, a partial recovery from the FY 2009 loss of $524 billion.

Masthead

usgovernmentdebt.us was designed and executed by:

Christopher Chantrill.

Email here.


Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

presented by Christopher Chantrill
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