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Government Spending Details
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| Units: By default, values are displayed in billions of dollars. By using a dropdown control in the table heading you can select millions of dollars, percent of GDP, percent of federal total, percent of overall total, dollars per capita of population, and thousand dollars per capita of population. Fiscal Year: The default year displayed is the current US government fiscal year. But you can select any year you want using the dropdown control in the table heading. At the top and bottom of the dropdown only years ending in “0” are shown. Select a year to get close, then select the year you want. You can increase or decrease the year using the “yr” text links in the table heading. US Budget Year: By default, the table displays budgeted and estimated numbers in the current US Budget submitted to the Congress by the president. But you can look at previous budgeted numbers using this dropdown control. | ||
| GDP: $15,684.8 billion(1) | State and Local Spending: By default, state and local spending are displayed separately. But you can select state'n local and display state and local spending combined. US or State: By default, the table shows values for governments in the United States overall. But you can select individual states by selecting the state dropdown control in the table heading or the text link right above it. Pie Chart: Select a pie chart you wish to display. You can create a pie chart for federal, state and local, and overall spending/revenue. United States Federal State and Local Government Spending | US CA > Pop: 314.1 million |
| -5yr -1yr Fiscal Year 2012 in $ trillion +1yr +5yr | ||
| View: people old default radical census programs COFOG | Fed (2) | Gov. Xfer(3) | State (3) | Local (3) | Total | charts | |||
| [+] | Pensions | 0.82 | 0.00 | 0.19 | 0.04 | 1.05 |  
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| [+] | Health Care | 0.85 | -0.03 | 0.49 | 0.13 | 1.44 |
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| [+] | Education | 0.15 | -0.11 | 0.27 | 0.51 | 0.82 |
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| [+] Charts: Click on a to display a bar of data in a row or column of this table.Click on to display a time-series chart of data in a row.[+] Drill-down: Click on the [+] to drill down to more detailed numbers. For federal spending line items (but not revenue) you can drill down three levels to view about 4,000 items of spending at the “agency code” level. | Defense | 0.90 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.90 |
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| [+] | Welfare | 0.45 | -0.40 | 0.20 | 0.10 | 0.36 |
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| [+] | Protection | 0.06 | 0.00 | 0.09 | 0.19 | 0.34 |
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| [+] | Transportation | 0.10 | -0.06 | 0.11 | 0.14 | 0.29 |
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| [+] | General Government | 0.03 | -0.00 | 0.03 | 0.05 | 0.12 |
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| [+] | Other Spending | 0.20 | -0.05 | 0.08 | 0.35 | 0.58 |
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| [+] | Interest | 0.22 | 0.00 | 0.05 | 0.06 | 0.34 |
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| [+] | Balance | 0.00 | -0.00 | 0.00 | -0.00 | 0.00 |
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| [+] | Total Spending | 3.80 | -0.64 | 1.51 | 1.57 | 6.23 |
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| [+] | Federal Deficit | 1.33 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.33 |
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| [+] | Gross Public Debt | 16.35 | 0.00 | 1.14 | 1.82 | 19.31 | | ||
| expand / collapse Click for Bar Chart -> | | | | | |||||
| Spending: Pie Chart: Select a pie chart you wish to display. You can create a pie chart for federal, state and local, and overall spending/revenue. Data Sources: GDP: Measuring Worth - US GDP 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 | Switch to revenue | ||||||||
The table shows overall government expenditures for the specified fiscal year. Spending totals are aggregated for each major government function.
- For the United States the table shows spending for all levels of government—federal spending, state spending, and local spending.
- For individual states the table shows expenditures for state and local governments only.
All federal outlays prior to 2012 and state and local finances prior to 2011 are actual. More recent spending, including future years out to 2017, are budgeted, estimated, or guesstimated.
Federal expenditure for 1962 through 2017 is based on federal subfunction data published in the president’s Budget of the United States Government. State and local expenditure—both for the United States as a whole and for individual states—for 1992 through 2011 is derived from spending, revenue, and debt numbers in the US Census Bureau’s annual survey of State and Local Government Finances.
State and local expenditure for the United States as a whole between 1971 and 1991 is obtained from Statistical Abstract of the United States. State and local expenditure for individual states between 1957 and 1991 is obtained from an MS Access database at a US Census Bureau site: Govt_Finances.zip.
Federal expenditure between 1792 and 1961 and state and local expenditure for the United States as a whole between 1902 and 1971 is obtained from the US Census Bureau’s Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.
You can use controls on the table to change from display of nationwide spending data to individual states. You can change the year or to drill down to view more detailed spending information. You can also view the spending data as percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Click the button at the right of each line of the table to display a bar chart of government spending. Click a button at the base of each column for a bar chart or pie chart. You can right click on the chart image to copy and paste it into your own content. Click the image to close the chart display.
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Click button to download CSV file of data in table
Tab-delimited Table
Notes
Data Sources: For a discussion of the sources of the government spending data used here read How We Got the Data for usgovernmentspending.com.
Intergovernmental Transfers: The column labeled “Gov. Xfer” in the table represents monies paid by the federal government as grants and aid to state and local governments. These are “intergovernmental transfers.”
For a discussion read All About Intergovernmental Transfers.
Federal Spending by Agency Code: If you drill down below the federal subfunction level you can see federal spending split up into about 4,000 agency code accounts.
For a discussion read Federal Spending at the Agency Code Level
Actual vs. Budgeted: Government spending data in usgovernmentspending.com includes historical spending and also future spending in three categories: budgeted, estimated, and guesstimated. Records of recent spending are more detailed than historical records of earlier times.
For a table of data sources see Government Spending Data: Sources.
Government Spending Updates: The next update to federal spending will be made when the president’s budget for FY 2014 is published, probably during February 2013. The last update to federal spending was made in February 2012. The last update to state and local spending was made in December 2012.
The update schedule is published on Government Spending Update Schedule.
Sources
U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History, 1913-2011
US Federal Income tax rate Schedules
New FDSYS federal budget page
from US Government Printing Office
Combined Statement of Receipts, Outlays, and Balances of the United States Government FY 2010
Annual US Treasury Report on Spending and Revenue
US Government - Historical Debt Outstanding
US Treasury's measure of US National Debt
Measuring Worth - GDP Series for US and UK
includes GDP and chained GDP for US; GDP and chained GDP for UK
Gross Domestic Product by State
from Bureau of Economic Analysis
US Population Estimates from 1900
Census Bureau's annual population estimate from 1900 to 1999
2005 Census of Governments - Finance Technical Documentation
Contains Census Bureau spending and revenue codes
JpGraph Chart Library
Open source graph creating Library for PHP.
Statistical Abstract of the United States
historical editions of Census Bureau's publication. From 1878.
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Data Sources for 2012:
GDP: Measuring Worth - US GDP
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
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.
Budget News
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Gross State Product Update for 2012
The US Bureau of Economic Analysis released its Gross State Product (GSP) data for 2012 on June 6...
Medicare and Social Security Details
On May 10, 2013, usgovernmentspending.com was updated to provide details of Social Security -- OASI...
New Medicare Breakdown
On May 12, 2013 we updated usgovernmentspending.com to show details of the federal Medicare progra...
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